URGE PREVENTION EDUCATION

The movement to legalize drugs employs sly marketing strategies to
desensitize society to the enormous harm caused by the self-indulgent
and illegal use of psychoactive and addictive substances.

Proponents claim that imposing legal consequences on users, dealers
and traffickers brings greater harm to society than would the
allowance of wholesale use. Hundreds of thousands of victims and
families and friends of victims know this is utterly false.

The devastation and heartbreak related to lost and/or degraded lives,
child abuse, child neglect, child pornography, unemployment, workplace
accidents, lost productivity, poverty, embezzlement, academic
underachievement and failure, increased medical costs, social welfare
costs and crime, cost society hundreds of billions every year - and
that is before adding in the cost of treatment and expenses associated
with law enforcement and incarceration.

Whatever the problem, whether it is environmental issues or improving
health care, the old adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure," still says it all.

If we care about reversing society's ills we must provide intensive
drug prevention education illuminating the physical, mental, emotional
and social harm associated with the use of psychoactive and addictive
substances.

Sandra S. Bennett,

La Center