pElAgUS' 

Re: "Don't legalize" (letters, March 29).

The letter writer needs to realize that illegal drugs cause crime, prostitution and disease. Drug dealers survive by the enslavement of others to illegal drugs.

Legalization will pull their profitable rug out from under them and then it's back to school or bust. Prostitution will decrease dramatically since women will no longer need to sell their bodies for a fix. In fact, no one will get mugged and killed for just a few dollars for a fix anymore.

Also, legalizing drugs would slow the spread of diseases incorporated into these worlds.

Here's an easy lesson: In the early 1970s, before President Nixon started the drug war, heroin cost $30 a bag and was 5 percent pure. Today, heroin costs $4 a bag and is up to 90 percent pure. Heroin is 600 times cheaper than before the war on drugs, and people are being murdered for the right to sell it. It's cheaper and easier to get than beer (dealers don't check ID).

Let's not fool ourselves that drug prohibition will do anything to stop drugs.

By the way, I'm all for legalization despite that I've never done a drug or even had a sip of alcohol. I'm a member of straight edge, but I can apply logic where it fits. Can others?

JAMES DOUGHERTY Marlton