NO GOOD REASON TO PERSECUTE POT USERS

To the editor:

Re: "Proposed pot laws murky for all," July 8.

Extraordinary. Nowhere in Barry Gerding's lengthy analysis of the legal
status of medical marijuana is any mention that punishing people for
ingesting this or that drug is a grievous assault of their God-given
right to ingest anything they've a mind to.

The purpose of the war on drugs is to indulge in a brutal pogrom
directed by the state against an identifiable minority of innocent drug
users. Why? Because it's exhilarating fun for those in positions of
power and it distracts the people's attention away from real problems.

There is no reason to punish drug users and distributors today than
there was in the past to hang witches, lynch blacks or gas Jews.

Alan Randell,
Victoria