Pubdate: Wed, 11 Mar 2009
Source: Barry's Bay This Week (CN ON)
Copyright: 2009 OSPREY Media Group Inc.
Contact: http://www.barrysbaythisweek.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx
Website: http://www.barrysbaythisweek.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3614
Author: Dave Goulet
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Cited: http://mapinc.org/author/Dan+Gardner

WE MUST WEIGH THE COSTS OF FIGHTING THE WAR ON DRUGS

Who's winning the war on drugs? Not us. There are renewed calls to 
legalize various drugs, especially marijuana. If you read The Ottawa 
Citizen you'll have seen Dan Gardner's articles, which make a strong, 
reasoned case for decriminalizing illicit drugs.

One of the main points raised is that by making drugs illegal, we 
have created a lucrative criminal enterprise, one that draws in 
otherwise law-abiding citizens. Joe the Mechanic or Jane the 
Housewife, hard up for money to pay their mortgage, decide to grow a 
little weed on Grandpa Elmer's old farm. Joe and Jane smoke a joint 
themselves once in awhile, so they see no real harm in it. Yeah, it's 
illegal. But that's why the money is good for those who take the risk 
of growing it and selling it.

If we decriminalize marijuana, we remove the temptation of big, easy 
money. Thus it's less likely that Joe and Jane will be inclined to 
grow more than a few plants for their own use. They certainly won't 
make friends with shadier drug dealers like biker gangs or the Mafia.

The argument holds for other drugs as well, as far as removing the 
criminal element from the mix, but marijuana is the least problematic 
of the lot and an obvious first step.

My only concern with this argument is that it rests on a major 
assumption: that the human cost of the criminal drug enterprise is 
greater than that of drug addiction. This definitely depends on the drug.

For example, legalizing marijuana would remove its criminal 
underground. However, as a legal drug, it's likely more people would 
use it that wouldn't have otherwise. Being a rather innocuous soft 
drug, marijuana's threat to society is minimal in comparison to the 
criminal enterprise it spawns.

But what about other drugs, the hard ones such as crystal meth, 
heroine and cocaine that turn their users into the walking dead? Even 
if you try to tightly control their distribution, once something is 
legal you can't put the genie back in the bottle. What about steroids 
and human growth hormones? These have also generated criminal 
enterprise. What about prostitution? What is its cost ratio? Should 
we put all our temptations on the table for consideration?

It's not easy to know where to draw the line in the sand. We have 
legal drugs in alcohol and tobacco. If you made them illegal today 
you would create a massive criminal enterprise by tomorrow morning. 
Yet look at the human costs both have wrought - we're talking 
millions of people negatively affected.

Some people say it's all about personal freedom. Let the individual 
decide what they choose to smoke, drink, eat, or with whom they 
sleep. Laws are made to protect us from each other, not ourselves. 
But what of the greater good? Have we suddenly become supermen with 
iron wills that find temptation irrelevant?

As it's Lent, I'm reminded of a spiritual truism: if you want to 
avoid sin, you must avoid the occasion of sin. Sin does lead to 
death, figuratively and sometimes literally. As a society we should 
keep this in mind as we try to balance what we allow and what we disallow.

It'd be a shame to win the war on drugs only to lose our collective 
soul in the process.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom