Heroin doesn’t care who it takes,  Janis Joplin, or Chris Levoir.   It’s an “equal opportunity” killer.   The rich and famous, or your brother, my grandchild, whoever.

I suppose alcohol could have killed Chris.  But not likely unless he’d been drinking large quantities for a long time – or of course had an accident related to alcohol.   A single ‘overdose’ of heroin.  Now that’s the real crime!  Imagine if a single dose were legal, and had a ‘regulation’ consistency.   Like alcohol.  Chances are he’d have had his high, and would still be alive to talk about it.

And to sing his next song.  He was so good.  He was such a loss.   I remember him participating in a fund-raiser at Alternative Grounds – for Kennel Café which was closed because of a fire.  He was 31, lead singer with The Mark Inside,  but that night he performed alone for the benefit.  The pet store re-opened just the other day.

The fact that alcohol is legal, and regulated, probably keeps deaths and other impacts relatively low, in proportion to the number of people imbibing.  And what a great source of tax revenue.

The ongoing debate about legalizing marijuana (and other drugs) seems like a no-brainer.  Not only would legalizing drugs produce large increases in tax revenues, and regulated drugs, but imagine the savings on the costs of ‘drug wars’.**   How many young people were snuffed out in local gang wars; and how many grief-stricken mothers are there, throughout the western world?

If voters were making choices based on facts instead of sensational headlines, we’d have legalized, regulated, and taxed drugs long ago.

* http://www.nowtoronto.com/music/story.cfm?content=192834                                   ** http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/business/in-rethinking-the-war-on-drugs-start-with-the-numbers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0