To the editor,
Congratulations to Ethan Baron for recognizing that cannabis should be legally regulated, however, he needs to do his homework on illicit drugs and drug policy. ("Hard drugs are the source of B.C.’s notoriety," Oct 15.)
The “hard drugs” Baron mentions; heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and methamphetamine, are also orders of magnitude less harmful than tobacco and alcohol when used as directed in a legally regulated environment.
Meth is available by prescription, ecstasy (MDMA) is being clinically reconsidered for psychotherapy, pharmaceutical heroin, used as directed, in no worse than any other opiate, and coca tea is healthier
than coffee and other caffeinated energy drinks.
Most of the crime and violence we associate with hard drugs is made worse by, if not caused by, criminal prohibition. The three evidence-based pillars of our drug control regime; prevention, treatment and harm reduction, are fettered and grossly outspent by the fourth, drug law enforcement.
The vast majority of drug users are not low-income, nor disadvantaged, nor under-educated, and consume drugs moderately and non-problematically. Most who become addicted are self-medicating
preexisting psychological problems that cops, courts and criminalization exacerbate.
The more harmful the substance, the less it makes sense to abdicate control of it to unaccountable criminals who sell drugs of unknown potency, purity and provenance, on commission, to anyone, of any age, any time, anywhere, no questions asked. We have more control over cat food than we do the so-called “controlled drugs and substances.”
Matthew M. Elrod
