KXAN News 36 in Austin, Texas has reported that despite drug prohibition remaining fully in place, heroin deaths in Austin nevertheless more then doubled, from the low-mid twenties in 2003 to 50 in 2004 -- 2005 has gotten off to a bad start with the latest fatality coming this past Tuesday. According to the report, prosecutors are seeking severe prison terms even for low-level players in the distribution chain as a result.

It would be unfortunate if they got them. The way to reduce heroin overdoses and poisonings is to move the trade into a legal, regulated environment in which users can know what they are getting. Certainly there are some, probably many dealers who knowingly put their customers' lives at risk by providing bad stuff, and there are dealers who engage in violent behavior and who are legitimate targets of the criminal justice system for that reason. Going after the former group might help a little in preventing ODs; going after the latter will clearly not. Many low-level suppliers are addicts who have been driven to it by the high price of heroin that prohibition has caused. Many others are just down and out people who are doing what they need to do to survive.

In the end, the government shares in the blame for most if not all of these deaths, because the government's prohibition laws made them more likely. Legalization, not prosecutions or lengthy sentences, will rescue generations of heroin addicts.

KXAN News 36 accepts comments online here. I haven't seen this story run anywhere else yet; please post back here if you do.

- Dave Borden, DRCNet