DRAGON PERSECUTED

Dear Editor,

"Prohibition works" is the message in your editorial [Meth menace, May 13
Comment, Langley Advance News]. All the same old demonizations are made
against the latest drug-de-jour, crystal meth.

Addiction is the dragon the fear-mongering crowd likes to trot out. St.
George is given every encouragement in his battle to slay the dragon. All
scapegoat persecutions are modeled on St. George.

Those on the front lines of this battle have a vested interest in
prohibition as public policy. What is really needed is an anthropologist to
come by and explain drug-taking from a ceremonial and ritual point of view.

Well, Canadians have avoided any truth about drugs since they absolved
themselves of the responsibility for their own drug-taking with Canada's
first drug law, The Opium Narcotic Act of 1908, which "medicalized" drugs.
Today, politicians, not doctors, decide what is and isn't medicine. Canada
has become a therapeutic state. We have evolved from the theologic state to
do our moralizing in medical terms, now that state and medicine are married.

Your readers ought to work towards ensuring that a safe supply of crystal
meth is available at the pharmacy, if they want to put all the underground
labs out of business. The more important consequence would be that fewer
users would come to harm.

It's time to separate state and medicine, and to start dealing with the
truth from a pharmacological as well as anthropological point of view.

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Manitoba