CHEMICAL 'BOGEYMAN' NOT TO PLAN FOR SOCIETAL ILLS

Editor: The Standard

Re RCMP track down grow-ops, Jul. 21

Another day, another piece of propaganda served up by the media to
persuade us to prostrate ourselves before Big Brother government and
support one of the most oppressive and brutal programs ever conjured
by the mind of man, drug prohibition. It's propaganda because, as
usual, those of us who oppose these ridiculous laws are not permitted
to be heard.

If drugs are banned because they're harmful, why don't we ban alcohol
and tobacco? No, let's face facts here. The government decided to ban
some harmful recreational drugs but not other harmful recreational
drugs for one reason and one reason only: To distract and entertain
the majority by persecuting an innocent minority.

Drug prohibition was initiated a hundred years ago to "control"
certain non-white minorities by banning the drugs used by those
minorities, but today, the cops are happy to make use of this racist
legislation to harass those whose lifestyle or skin colour offends
them.

One thing for sure, drug prohibition has NOTHING to do with protecting
anyone from anything. Rather, drug scares are about the use of
something by a group of people who are already perceived by a ruling
elite as some type of threat. In short, drugs are highly useful,
functional and beneficial scapegoats. They provide a ruling class with
fig leaves to place over the unsightly social ills that are endemic to
the social system over which they preside and they give the general
public a focus for blame in which a chemical 'bogeyman,' or the
'deviants' who ingest it, are the root cause for a wide array of
complex social problems.

Alan Randell

Victoria, BC