I refer to Juan Ameen’s article entitled “The war on drugs is ‘lost’” (TMIS, 7 November). I’d like to add that the war on drugs was lost before it began. Simply because no matter how much money you spend or how many drug users or drug seller you arrest and jail, as long as people want recreational drugs, and are willing to pay a substantial price for them, somebody will produce the drugs and somebody else will get the drugs to the willing buyers.

This is guaranteed.

Many judges and prison wardens have said that 70 to 90 per cent of our violent crime and property crime is “drug-related.”

Actually, almost 100 per cent of our so-called “drug-related crime” is caused by our drug criminalisation policies — not the drugs themselves.

When pure pharmaceutical grade Bayer heroin was legally available in local U S pharmacies for about the same price as Bayer aspirin, the term “drug-related crime” didn’t exist. Neither did drug barons, drug cartels or even drug dealers, as we know them today.

Almost all of the problems we have with illegal drugs are because certain (politically selected) drugs are illegal. Because certain drugs are illegal, they are of unknown quality, unknown purity and unknown potency — just like alcohol was during Prohibition.

And just like alcohol when it was illegal, recreational drugs are untaxed, unregulated and controlled by criminal gangs.

For the sake of our children, we need to regulate and control the sale and production of recreational drugs. Only legal products can be regulated and controlled by governments.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, USA