I agree totally with your August 1 editorial, "This is your gov't on
drugs," that the long-suffering BC taxpayer should not be forced to
ante up the money to provide free drugs to individuals diagnosed by
doctors as "addicts," as was recently recommended by Dr. John Millar,
BC's provincial health officer - but not for the reason you gave. You
oppose it because you don't think it will reduce crime and enable
users to live a more normal existence, even though a number of studies
have indicated that it does.

Even if you are correct, would you not agree that our current policies
are not working and that we have to change SOMETHING?

Consider the following:

1. The State has no more right to prohibit drugs than it has to
prohibit licorice. Canadian men and women have the right to ingest any
substance whether or not State doctors feel they are harmful, or even
lethal. As John Stuart Mill explained it, "The only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own
good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."

2. The prohibition of drugs has no basis in fact or in law. It is a
hate campaign pure and simple, a pogrom, a Holocaust, a "final
solution" sponsored by the rich and powerful against the weak and powerless.

3. The prohibition of drugs harms users as they are denied access to
substances of known purity and potency. Thousands were poisoned during
the prohibition of alcohol in the US.

4. The prohibition of drugs creates crime by forcing the price of
these substances up so high that a substantial number of users have to
resort to crime in order to finance their habit. If the cigarette
smoker can pick up his supply for a few dollars at the corner store on
his way home from work, why shouldn't the heroin or cocaine user be
free to do likewise? Why should he be forced to spend the whole day
stealing enough money to pay for his particular habit?

Drug prohibition is arguably the greatest evil of our
time.

I invite you, and indeed all your readers, to take the time to find
out the facts about drug prohibition and stop listening to our
political and law enforcement leaders who have a vested interest in
continuing the persecution of innocent drug users.

Alan Randell