DOES OTTAWA MATTER?

Reading the opening paragraph of "Does Ottawa matter?" I can't escape the
feeling that the last time you picked up a newspaper was 1993. Can all that
crap about a "heroin-ravaged neighbourhood," how "drugs create crime" and
that "addicts are sick." Drugs kill only because drugs are illegal. The 1973
Le Dain Commission concluded "There appears to be little permanent
physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate narcotics." Drugs also
cause crime only because drugs are illegal. Heroin addicts are no sicker
than coffee addicts. Drug prohibition is an egregious abuse of our God-given
right to ingest any damn drug we've a mind to, however harmful. It is, above
all else, a human rights issue.

Alan Randell, Victoria