'WITCH MARKS'?

I wonder if parents in Lockney who support drug testing ever heard of
"witch marks." That was one of the tests ostensibly good Christians were
required to submit to in an earlier time. Drug testing children is a
modern-day chemical witch hunt.

Thomas Jefferson understood well the tyranny of religious oppression. "The
legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious
to others," he wrote. "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my
leg."

I understand those who would prefer to live in a theocracy would just as
soon rewrite history than to apply those two tests to drug ownership. If
Jefferson were alive today, he would see the need to separate medicine from
the state. Americans have learned to do their moralizing in medical terms.
Medicalized morals are the tyranny of modern-day oppressors.

The "therapeutic state" has evolved from the theologic state, seeking
medical/therapeutic solutions to moral/social problems. It is just as ugly
as the theologic state of the past. Anything that might threaten total
control of the social behavior of the herd is demonized. Deified figures
can then rise to protect the herd from whatever danger lurks in the imagery
created. Anyone who even questions the motives or the morality of the "war
on drugs" is seen as a threat and "evil."

Restore our natural right to drugs, a right that mankind has owned since
time began. John Quincy Adams left Americans with the wisdom that even
though every time and every culture had subjection, it was man's very
nature to be free.

Those willing to sacrifice liberty for safety will lose both - a lesson
from Benjamin Franklin that had better be heeded, lest Americans wake one
day to find themselves subjected to the whims of religion once more.

CHRIS BUORS
Winnipeg, Manitoba