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LEGALIZING DRUGS HAS LOWERED ADDICTION

I'm writing about the April 4 letter "Bad things will happen if marijuana is legalized."

In the Netherlands, where marijuana has been quasi-legal for several decades, the Dutch use marijuana at less than half the rate that Americans do.  And they use heroin at less than a third of the rate that Americans do.  ( See www.drugwarfacts.org/

thenethe.htm.  )

In 2001, Portugal abolished all criminal penalties for personal possession of all drugs.  Have the rates of drug use and abuse skyrocketed in Portugal? No, they have fallen.

In 1994, Switzerland started an experimental program to sell heroin addicts heroin at very low cost or even give it to the addicts who couldn't afford it.  In 2008, 68 percent of the Swiss voted to make the program permanent.  Have Swiss heroin addiction rates skyrocketed? No,

they have fallen dramatically.  So has their overall crime rate.

So, claims that if marijuana is legalized drug use and abuse would skyrocket are totally bogus.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.