POT USE PERSONAL

Dear Editor,

So, as long as only a few are denied their rights, it's okay? [Tokers
stoked, April 13, Feature Letter, Advance News].

There's more in common between the pogroms of the past and Canada's drug
laws than mere numbers. There is no more justification for persecuting
those who ingest, manufacture, or distribute drugs today than there was
in the past for burning witches at the stake, lynching blacks, or
gassing Jews.

I encourage you to debate seriously the issue of drug prohibition
instead of just poking fun at those who disagree with you.

Here are a few questions to get the debate started.

Why do you believe that the state has the right to punish people for
what they choose to ingest into their own bodies? Do not free adults
have the right to ingest any drug, however harmful?

Why are some drugs banned while others equally harmful are not?

Why was Prohibition ended? Did Al Capone create Prohibition or was it
the other way around? Did the experience of Prohibition show us that
more users died when a drug is banned, or fewer?

Alan Randell, Victoria