'JUST SAY NO' DOESN'T WORK

Re: Champ shares story of life's hard uppercut, Apr. 26.

George Chuvalo was a courageous and skillful boxer, but his take on
the tragic heroin-induced deaths of his sons is tragically wrong.
Simply urging kids to just say no to drugs doesn't work and, besides,
it was drug prohibition that killed his sons, not the drug itself.

Prohibition works in two ways to harm users.

The drugs are often adulterated because of prohibition, so that, even
though the 1973 Le Dain Commission concluded "there appears to be
little permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate
narcotics," prohibition kills users by denying them access to
unadulterated drugs.

History provides confirmation of this process when we recall the
prohibition of alcohol poisoned thousands by denying them access to
unadulterated alcohol. My 19-year-old son, Peter, died in February,
1993 shortly after ingesting street heroin.

Lastly, the prices charged by dealers are much higher than they would
be if the drugs were legally available at the corner store because the
dealer has to factor in the possibility of being caught by the police.

How sad to see that George Chuvalo has been bamboozled into supporting
the very laws that killed his sons, the failed crusade of drug
prohibition.

Alan Randell

Victoria, BC