COLUMNIST MISTAKEN

Editor: Columnist Lamar Moore is mistaken. In the Netherlands there exists
retirement homes for heroin users who have survived 30 years and more of
continuous use all the while maintaining employment. The World Health
Organization has reported that alcohol and tobacco are by far more harmful
than heroin, cocaine and cannabis.

"Dangerous drugs" is a political designation. The base reason for drug
prohibition is fear of easy suicide in American culture. Indeed the debate
on so-called assisted-suicide would be moot if Americans were to control
their own medicine as was their natural right since time began up until
about 100 years ago.

If it is an economic decision to ban drugs, it is the worst economic
decision ever made. Eight per cent of the world economy has now been driven
underground. Moral righteousness is the underlying reason for the drug war.
Eerily similar to the Christian Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and
Prohibition, the righteous are always blinded to the harm done in the name
of helping people who don't want to be helped.

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada