MANITOBA READER BELIEVES COLUMNIST NEEDS AN INFUSION OF JEFFSONIANISM

What a master propagandist Tom Fletcher is. For instance, (in his June
8 op-ed column, So-called "safe injection sites" are anything but
safe) Mr. Fletcher rails against harm reduction as a "questionable bit
social engineering" without considering that drug prohibition is not
exactly the natural state of affairs.

Mr. Fletcher alerts us to the Orwellian lesson that to control
language is to control mankind, then proceeds to use strong control
words himself. For instance, the notions of "hard/soft drug problem,"
"junkies" and "superficial perception" is using language George Orwell
himself would identify as political. Hard and soft are moral
judgments, not chemical properties. Moral judgment is based on a
feminization scale not scientific fact. Junkies is a stigmatizing
term, not a descriptive term. And speaking of superficial perceptions,
is that not exactly what the "drug problem" is in the first place.

The drug problem boils down to the fact that some people want to use
drugs that other people don't want them to use. Over time and cultures
the name of the substance changes. To rid ourselves of the contrived
language that the state has dominated the viewpoint of an
anthropologist would be enlightening to say the least. Ceremonial and
ritual drug use is as old as humanity is itself. Opium and cannabis
are the ceremonial and ritual substances of Asian cultures, coca is
used in native South American cultures for the same reasons. Alcohol
is the ceremonial drink of the Anglo Saxons. It is wine in the
priest's goblet.

What Tom Fletcher needs is a good dose of Jeffersonian wisdom to clear
up any muddled thinking. Political correctness did not exist when
Thomas Jefferson wrote that it was his observation that in order for
the state to control the diet or medicines of the people, the state
must also control the ideas the people have about those substances.
Jefferson mentions that free people who have their thoughts shaped or
controlled by the state are not free.

In a free country, it is not the duty of the state to "help people get
off drugs." It was never the duty of the state to lie or control the
language of the debate, substance "abuse" indeed.

I was once offered the opportunity to save my railroading career by
attending treatment after being arrested for a cannabis offense. I
knew that to be forced religious and political conversion but I did
not know how to make the intellectual arguments. I know how now.
Classic liberalism and the notion of individual responsibility is the
trump card.

Jefferson enlightened me. Truth stands on it's own and the state lies
enshrined in the immoral policy of prohibition will look like
laughable lies once the history books are written.

Who are the aggressors is what history will want to know. The
prohibitionist, the legislators, the courts that uphold these lies as
constitutional and the politicians who set the social construct are
the criminals.

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Man.