Pubdate: Sun, 04 Mar 2007
Source: Langley Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 Langley Times
Contact:  http://www.langleytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1230
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n184/a09.html
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n185/a08.html
Author: Jaime Skilling
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH IS A KILLER

Editor: In response to the letters published on Feb. 14 about "legalizing 
meth," I just have to ask: Have any of the letter writers who think that 
legalizing meth is necessary ever known someone who has used meth?

Do they know how hard it is to watch someone you love being killed by that 
crap? I have known a few people who were caught up in that world, and the 
one thing that they had in common was the knowledge that they are killing 
themselves, and they don't know how to stop.

They go into a detox centre and feel like no one there truly understands 
them, so they leave and go back to what they know  and that's the drug 
dealers or their friends who are also in the same situation.

Or how about those people who have successfully stopped using the stuff; 
those who are constantly fighting the urge to go back to it. How is 
legalizing it going to help any of them? It will just make it easier to 
get, or easier to go back to.

Now they may say that "our current justice system isn't working" and you're 
right, the sentences handed down are too light. Everyone knows that getting 
caught once means little. It's only your first offence and you pretty much 
just get a slap on the wrist.

How about making the punishment harsher? Why not treat a drug dealer like a 
mass murderer (since basically they are) and make it mandatory that they 
spend 20 years in prison. For those who are in possession of any narcotics, 
why not give them a mandatory ban from whichever city they were caught in?

That way, it would make it more difficult for those addicts to get back to 
their dealer and/or to the people they would regularly associate with in 
that city. The harder it is to get, the less likely someone is to use it.

Oh, and I almost forgot. "Regulation" works so well with both cigarettes 
and alcohol that it will work for narcotics also, right?

Sorry, but how about the 13-year-old I saw the other day smoking, or the 16 
or 17-year-old who thinks that they are invincible and drive drunk, killing 
someone on their way home. I guess regulation is working great in those 
situations.

How about the old guy who likes to make his own moonshine? Oh yeah, laws 
and regulation really work, don't they.

Jaime Skilling,

Langley
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