QUESTIONS STREET SMART ARTICLE

Questions 'street Smart' Article Re HRMC Employees Get 'street Smart', July 11

I'm glad to see your police officers venture into the community to
acquaint others with street slang surrounding drugs. I'm less happy,
though, to see the police talking about "the impact drugs can have on
the county" which is presumably a means for the police to persuade
the audience that drug prohibition is a good idea.

I would like to be a fly on the wall when an audience member asks a
few probing questions about drug prohibition:

1. Where is it written in the Bill of Rights that the state has the
right to punish people for what they choose to ingest into their own
bodies?

2. If an amendment (the 18th) to the constitution was needed to ban
alcohol, why was an amendment not needed to ban drugs?

3. If drugs are banned because it is harmful to users, why, then, are
tobacco and alcohol not banned?

4. In 1973, Canada's Le Dain commission concluded, "There appears to
be little permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure
opiate narcotics." Why, then, ban heroin?

5. If prohibition is so great, why did America give up on Prohibition?

6. I've been told that police officers support laws like our drug
laws because they increase crime and hence police budgets and police
power. In fact, I'm told they would be in seventh heaven if tobacco
or alcohol were banned. Would you care to comment?

For me, there is no more reason to punish drug users today than there
was in the past to hang witches, lynch blacks or gas Jews. Alan
Randell 1821 Knutsford Place Victoria, BC, V8N 6E3, Canada