ADVICE WELL STATED

Ann Landers' Christmas column, "Christmas message for 2001," was right
on the money, especially when she said the war on drugs is a failure.

However, most of our crime is not drug related but rather drug
prohibition related.

When all drugs were legal, nobody is robing, stealing or committing
acts of prostitution to obtain money to purchase drugs. They didn't
have to because all recreational drugs were available cheaply at local
pharmacies for pennies per dose.

Today, because of drug prohibition, drugs are exorbitantly priced and
are of unknown quality, unknown purity and unknown potency.

This is not unlike the bathtub gin of the alcohol prohibition era that
resulted in needless deaths and needless blindings.

Kirk Muse,
Vancouver