MAKING CERTAIN DRUGS ILLEGAL DOES NOTHING TO REDUCE CRIME, SAYS READER

To the Editor,

Re: Huron OPP speaks to SPS students about Crimestoppers and drugs, Jan. 22.

Why do governments prohibit certain drugs. Is it to protect users from harm?

No, that can't be the reason because users suffer more (adulterated drugs
and jail time) when a drug is banned as compared to when it is legally
available.

My wife and I became well acquainted with this aspect of government policy
when we lost our 19-year-old son to street heroin in 1993.

The harm argument is moot in any event because two of our more dangerous
drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are legal. Is it to reduce the crime associated
with illegal drugs?

No, that can't be the reason because banning a drug always gives rise to
more crime (drug cartels, petty crimes by users as prohibition makes drug
prices much higher, violent disputes between dealers) than when the drug is
legally available.

Is it a bid to distract and entertain the majority by conducting a brutal,
Hitler-like pogrom to ruin the lives of the innocent minority who ingest or
sell certain drugs?

Bingo!

Why do we put up with this loathsome program?

Because the media support it.

Why do the media support drug prohibition? Let us count the ways:

1. It provides many "exciting" news stories and pictures about various
busts, murders and assaults as well as adrenaline-pumping accounts of cops
battering down doors - usually in the poorer areas of our cities and towns.

2. It enables editors to wax poet as they pledge their undying support for
these fascist-like horrors "to protect the children", taking care to omit
the hell some children are thrust into when their parents are jailed for
the "crime" of using or selling a drug the majority doesn't approve of.

3. It provides many opportunities to publish "moving" accounts of born
again former drug users giving their just-say-no nonsense to a roomful of
children and imploring the kids, "don't do what I did, do what I say" as
they pocket speaking fees and expenses far in excess of what they could
earn if they hadn't clambered aboard the taxpayer-funded drug war gravy train.

4. It provides many drug scare stories passed along by the cops who are
anxious to keep prohibition going because it provides them with bigger
budgets and more power - not to mention free drugs.

5. Misery, suffering and hatred sell more newspapers and produce higher TV
ratings than happiness, contentment and love. Perhaps the world would have
been a better place of the mass media had never been invented.

Alan Randell

Victoria, BC