OUTLAWING DRUGS PART OF PROBLEM

To the editor:

Thanks for publishing Trevor Houlahan's outstanding letter ("Legal drugs
would reduce crime, Letters, Dec. 29). I'd like to add that when pure Bayer
heroin was legally sold in U.S. pharmacies for about the same price as
Bayer aspirin, the term "drug related crime" didn't exist.

Neither did drug cartels or drug lords. These were all created by drug
prohibition. Not the drugs.

When Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine and sold for five
cents a bottle, deaths from recreational drugs were rare. That's because
the drugs were of known quality, purity and potency. Today recreational
drugs are untaxed, unregulated and controlled by criminal gangs. Alcohol
prohibition didn't work and drug prohibition isn't working either.

Kirk Muse,
Mesa, Arizona