To the Drug Enforcement Administration: My simple suggestion for ending the U S illegal drug epidemic.

You guys have been attacking the wrong end of the chain. You have been trying to stop the manufacturers or interdict the supply lines. The U S market demand for illegal drugs is so financially lucrative that there is no way to stop the makers and suppliers. You can not make their profession sufficiently dangerous to make them consider the risk/reward ratio to be not in their favor.

What you need to do is eliminate the demand part of the equation. If no one wants the drugs, then no one will bother to produce or transport the drugs. How do you eliminate the demand? Quite literally. I assume the DEA has large quantities of seized heroin, cocaine, etc, which was seized enroute and is uncut, i.e. much stronger than normal "street drugs". I propose that the DEA infiltrate the street seller business and sell the uncut product to the customers. There will be a great surge in drug overdoses, and then a great drop in drug demand.

There is a potential ethical/moral dilemma to this solution, but you could argue that these users had already chosen to waste their lives and were living on borrowed time anyway. Perhaps innocent lives were spared because these criminals didn't get a chance to commit crimes against the the innocent to support their drug habit. Maybe society was saved the cost of capturing, trying, imprisoning and rehabilitating them. It's  not like you're forcing anything on them. You're giving them something they want, and they'll even pay you for it.

Illinois Rocked by Mexican Heroin Deaths

Thursday, April 16, 2009 1:25 PM

CHICAGO -- An Illinois congressman says at least 31 people in two suburban Chicago counties have died this year after overdosing on unusually strong heroin from Mexico.

Rep. Mark Kirk says the deaths in Lake and Will counties represent a dramatic increase from the 24 people who died of overdoses in 2008.

The Republican says officials have tracked the heroin to drug cartels in Mexico.

Will County's coroner has said some of the heroin appears to be so strong that people die before they can even pull the needle out.

Kirk said this week he is considering whether to run for Congress again, or turn his attention to a bid for the Senate or the governorship.

How about that? They liked my idea. Good work guys!