POLICE DOGS HAVE NO PLACE IN THE LOCKERS OF CANADIAN SCHOOLS

Dear editor,

Letter writer Patty-Anne Lea seems to think it is a good civics lesson to
have police dogs randomly search for drugs in school. That lesson would
prepare our future citizens to accept any kind of draconian action deemed
necessary to win the war on (some) drugs, I suppose.

Patty-Anne goes on to tell us that schools ought to teach children the
"right" morals that she finds lacking in parents who do not agree with drug
prohibition. Aristotle not to mention Jefferson would be startled by the
idea that it is the state's duty to protect and educate the children in
morals. The parents protect and educate the children in morals, they have
since time began and they will until time ends.

Time Magazine's man of the Century Albert Einstein answered that he
couldn't think of anything that would breed disrespect for the law and the
government quicker than the passing of unenforceable laws when he was asked
his opinion on prohibition on arrival in America. The history books are
full of unjust laws, should they be hidden from children to teach them to
respect whatever chicanery moralists pass into law?

In "Notes on Virginia" Thomas Jefferson put forth ideas that seem
particularly pertinent to drug control: "Were the government to prescribe
to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our
souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine,
and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as infallible too,
when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for
affirming that the Earth was a sphere. It is error alone which needs the
support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Should schools pretend Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson never existed
in order to teach children to respect the law?

The law ought not be a tool to send moralizing messages. The coercive force
of the law ought to be used only to protect us from violence and fraud.
Those who want to abuse the law for any other purpose are the one's who
have no respect for the law.

- - Chris Buors Winnipeg