End Drug Prohibition To Reduce Violent Crime

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In the story Martin announces measures to curb gun, gang violence ( SP Nov. 10 ) the prime minister's plan to make us safer is remarkably lacking in content. He apparently intends to increase jail terms and give more money to youth programs. There is nothing new in this prescription, nor has it proven successful.

Although well-run youth programs may have some impact, increasing jail time doesn't work. Is American society less crime-ridden, even though two per cent of its adult population is in jail or on parole due to long jail terms and mandatory minimums? If anything, harsher penalties lead to harsher crimes committed by people with little to lose.

The way to reduce crime is to end the prohibition of marijuana and other drugs. Stop pumping billions of dollars into the underworld. Why would someone go to school when hundreds of dollars a day can be earned working in a gang delivering drugs? Where that many dollars are floating around, guns and violence are sure to follow. When the U.S. repealed prohibition, the murder rate fell by almost half over the following five years.

Prohibition has not reduced drug use. Rates of drug use are typically lower where drugs are legally available. People who use drugs under prohibition do so with greater health consequence, because of unknown drug purity and disease due to dirty drugs and paraphernalia. Health costs are less where drugs are legally available.

A fundamental principle of democracy is that by giving people the freedom to make their own choices, they will do a better job than by following coercive laws.

If prohibition is repealed, some people will make bad choices, but the great majority of people will do what is right for themselves -- and for those who make the wrong choices, help will be quicker and cheaper.

Ken Sailor

Saskatoon

Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN)
Copyright: 2005 The StarPhoenix
Contact: spnews@SP.canwest.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/