CONTINUE THE WAR ON DRUGS

I could not believe the nonsense of Gwynne Dyer's column "The
struggle against the "War on Drugs".

Pot should never be legalized. Drugs fry people's brains and drugs
kill, period. Do drugs and people high on drugs make them better
parents, spouses and employees?

We should continue the war on drugs. I will admit the drug war is not
very successful, but just because we cannot eradicate an evil, does
that mean we give in? We have not stopped rape or homosexual priests
who sexually molest boys or drinking and driving, but do we then
legalize all that, because we fail to eliminate that? Of course not!
Why should drugs be different? Some people act like idiots, and do
bizarre things, but does that mean help them carry on that way?

Advocates for legalization will cite that Prohibition never worked in
the 1920s to ban alcohol. So when it was repealed did that end all
alcohol problems? When it was lifted the number of alcoholics
skyrocketed and that is due to the fact that all of a sudden there
was no legal penalty against drinking. Many started drinking who
never did during Prohibition because of the penalties and got hooked.
We haven't stressed the desire to not to drink. Ending Prohibition
did not end the massive size of organized crime.

Every law has a moral component to it. It expresses a morality, but
it can also change people's moral views when something is legalized.
Something that was considered evil by most can have the ability to
make people doubt the evilness of that same something if it is
legalized. Just look at attitudes about homosexuality and abortion.
Making homosexual marriage and abortion legal doesn't change the fact
the it perverts marriage and that abortion is the killing of innocent
children, yet legalization changed societal attitudes into accepting
it. Do we want this for illegal drugs?

The intent of criminal law is to show the boundaries by which society
functions within. Evil acts and behaviour that is harmful to society
is thereby criminalized. Most people think anything that is not
criminalized is not harmful. If we legalize pot people would get that
impression.

Making something legal does not make it good for the well being of
society, the legalization of gambling brought a massive group of
people to destruction and ruin. Law can shape and intervene to
prevent the action of people who don't give a hoot about the harm
they can do to others and themselves.

Legalization of drugs will cause untold misery to those who get
hooked and I call that exploitation. Do we want more people needing
addiction programs? Any one successfully treated by an addiction
program will fi rst say they dearly wish they never had the easy
access to the vice that got them addicted in the fi rst place. Often
they would say if that vice were illegal they would not have
experimented with it, which got them hooked.

The Law can prevent exploitation of the helpless in society.Fear of
criminal record does prevent many from doing something illegal. Many
would never experiment with pot if it could get them a criminal
record but would if the criminal record threat is lifted. That is
what criminal law is designed to do, to provide deterrence.

It is amazing that the previous Liberal government clamped down hard
on tobacco, but was talking about decriminalization of pot. If
tobacco causes a wealth of health problems, why won't pot?

It is insane for the government to provide people who land in jail on
drug offenses a needle exchange program for them if they do drugs in
jail. Jail is supposed to punish behaviour. How can someone be
allowed to partake an activity in jail, which was the same activity
that got him there in the fi rst place? No wonder people get confused
about whether they have permission to smoke pot.

I have helped in a soup kitchen and will continue to do so and I have
seen the thorough ruin that drugs have done to people. To see how
hooked they are because of drugs is heart breaking. People who pedal
drugs have callous disregard for the damage they do to others. They
should be behind bars.

Stanley Reitsma

Carman Man.