Source: European, The Contact: http://www.the-european.com/ Pubdate: 24 Aug 1998 Authors: Redford Givens, Clifford Schaffer, Dr Andrew Byrne, Tim Sheridan PROHIBITION IS THE PROBLEM, NOT ILLEGAL DRUGS IT SHOULD be obvious that giving control of a huge drugs market to vicious criminals is bad policy. Virtually all of the problems we have with drugs come from the illegal black market that our insane drugs laws subsidise. Here in the United States 15 years of the harshest drug prohibition enforcement in history have made us the world leader in incarceration, while heroin and cocaine are purer, cheaper and more widely available than ever before. Drugs prohibition is such a failure that we are beginning to see addicts as young as 12 and 13. It is interesting to note that history is repeating itself. A terrible epidemic of child drunkenness rampaged across America in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Bootleggers then, just like drugs dealers today, did not care how old their customers were, as long as they had the money to pay for alcohol. Schools had to be closed because of problems with drunk students. Under-age drinking did not decline until alcohol prohibition was repealed and licensed dealers could be forced to obey age limits. The only way to regain control of illicit drugs is by decriminalising them and regulating their use. Regulation is impossible under a drugs ban. The harsher the laws become, the worse our "drugs problem" will be. When we foolishly outlawed alcohol we experienced exactly the same "problems" we now have with drugs prohibition. We should remember that federal agents and the police never put the bootleggers out of business when alcohol was banned; repeal did. Redford Givens San Francisco, California, USA - ---------- PAUL FLYNN, Britain's leading anti-prohibition MP and medical cannabis campaigner is right in arguing that a blanket ban on drugs does not solve anything; it simply creates additional problems. I co-founded the DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy, the website address of which is. www.druglibrary.org. The centrepiece of the library is the full text of the largest studies of drugs policy from around the world over the past 100 years The library also has many thousands of supporting historical and research documents. In short, all of these studies concluded that banning drugs is a disaster and that legislation should be repealed. I have personally contacted every "drugs tsar" appointed by the US government in recent years, including William Bennett, Bob Martinez, Lee Brown and General McCaffrey. I asked each of them if they could name any significant study of drugs policy in the past 100 years which supported prohibition. They all admitted that they did not know of a single such study. The evidence is overwhelming. Prohibition of drugs is a disaster. Clifford A Schaffer Director, DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy Canyon County. California USA - --------- THE reason why methadone treatment does not work in much of the United Kingdom is because it is not given under supervision. In Scotland and overseas, where methadone dosing is witnessed, deaths from the drug are very uncommon. Most addicts on treatment use fewer illicit drugs; they get jobs and largely return to normal family life and there is less crime. Dr Andrew Byrne Redfern, New South Wales, Australia - ------ THE only way to reduce the harm that drugs cause is to destroy the illegal, irresponsible, armed black market and to replace it with a legal market which can be rigorously policed, regulated and controlled. Tim Sheridan London, England - --- Checked-by: Pat Dolan