PEOPLE WHO USE DRUGS ARE NOT GOVERNMENT'S CONCERN

Letter writer Jason Palmer is wise enough to understand that taking drugs is
a social issue ("Attack drug abuse socially, not militarily," Dec. 23). I
would add that it is a moral issue, because the use of drugs is a vice, not
a crime or a medical disorder.

Robert Sharpe, who is a program officer for the Lindesmith Center-Drug
Policy Foundation, errs in defining "all substance abuse - legal or
otherwise - as [a] public-health problem." Public-health problems in the
past were defined as communicable diseases like typhoid, tuberculosis and
polio. Sanitation concerns conducive to breeding rats can also be defined as
a public-health concern.

Taking drugs is a volitional act; no one has ever "caught" addiction. So I
fail to understand the public-health aspect that falsely makes the
drug-taking habits of one's neighbors one's business. It is of no concern to
legitimate government if a man wants to eat poison. It is not the obligation
of legitimate government to save people from themselves. One has to wonder
what kind of mote is in the eye of the Lindesmith Center to obfuscate the
issue by defining the private act of taking drugs as a public-health issue.

Christopher Buors, Winnipeg, Manitoba