Pubdate: Tue, 14 Aug 2007
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: John Freeman

DRUG TREATMENT WOULD CUT CRIME

The reason for giving drugs free to addicts is not to prolong their 
addiction. It is simply to remove the profit motive from the 
equation. Drug "pushers" are called pushers for a reason -- it is 
their job to get more people hooked in order to increase the size of 
their customer base, thereby increasing their profits. If there are 
no more millions of dollars to be made in the illicit drug trade, it 
will dry up and blow away. No addict is going to pay hundreds of 
dollars a day to a dealer if the habit can be controlled in clean 
surroundings for free.

Benefits? Well, aside from the obvious benefits to the addicts, and 
the greatly increased possibility of getting them into treatment, it 
would free up millions of dollars' worth of police time. With the 
drug dealers gone the police can use their time for other 
community-enhancing tasks. The rate of property crime would fall off 
sharply without the addicts' need to make drug-buying dollars any way possible.

Probably the most important result would be the possibility for the 
addict to move on to a more constructive life without the constant 
need to do anything, legal or not, to keep the drug supply flowing.

John Freeman,

Parksville.
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