POT PROHIBITIONISTS ARE WRONG

To the editor:

I am responding to Richard K. Hode's letter, headlined Spying on
neighbours bad, on page A12 of your May 18 edition.

Mr. Hode is correct in comparing the modern pogrom on cannabis users
and growers to the Spanish Inquisition. There are other similar
comparisons throughout history (the East German's Stasi would be a
better comparison).

But the thing I find most frightening is a full half of our citizens
will observe these similarities between the inquisition and the modern
war on certain drugs - and still insist our modern war is valid and
just. [This would include Prime Minister] Stephen Harper and his cabinet.

Prohibitionists are like religious zealots: when presented with facts,
history, science, and data, they simply refuse to acknowledge it.
Instead, they dig in their heels, and insist even more vehemently that
they are right because they believe themselves to be right.

"Nothing you can say will make me change my mind" is a phrase I hear
often when discussing drug laws with prohibitionists. Not listening is
one thing, but refusing to listen and ignoring data that you don't
agree with is completely Alice-In-Wonderland absurd.

Yet our government and half of Canada's population do exactly that.
This does much to explain why we have these problems. Maybe we should
start locking up prohibitionists for everyone's safety.

Russell Barth

Educators for Sensible Drug Policy