WILL YOU WILLINGLY CEDE RIGHTS TO GOVERNMENT?

Re War on drugs is blowing up in our faces, expert warns (the News,
February 22):

"We couldn't have done a worse job if we tried," says Eugene Oscapella.

Unless one considers the possibility it might have all been on purpose, in
which case it is all going exactly as planned.

Cops have powers they don't deserve, military suppliers are getting rich
and the prison industry is growing fast!

Prohibition serves police and government in that it usurps basic rights.

This makes the individual, and the masses, easier to control.

Since there are always a few who want to fight back, it also makes guns
and bombs and other implements of war more necessary, which means more
profit.

Also, there is still a contingent of sick people who think - despite any
evidence to support the notion - that fear is the best deterrent and
punishment the best remedy.

They think that all the misery and cost of prohibition is worth it,
because they think that the quest for obedience is somehow noble.

When one considers that junk food (coffee included) will kill many times
more Canadians than all illegal drugs combined, criminalizing drugs for
"public safety" seems far beyond absurd.

"If all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty
together again, then why call for more horses and more men?" Because it
makes money for them," said Oscapella.

"The overall effect of the legislation will be to hand over the trade,
even more than it is now, to organized crime."

This also was by design.

It scares the population into submission and justifies the need for even
more police and jails.

"On this 100th anniversary of prohibition, maybe we have to ask ourselves,
are we addicted to prohibition?" said Oscapella.

I think what we are addicted to is patriarchy - the collective notion that
some father, boss, principal, coach or God is above us, and that we need
to obey them.

If you accept that the government has any authority over what you can and
cannot put into your own body, then you must accept their ownership: You
must accept that the government owns you - like a pet or cattle - and that
you have only the rights that it grants you.

If you accept that, then you deserve to have no rights at all.

Russell Barth, federal medical marijuana licence holder, Ottawa