TOUGH QUESTIONS NEED ANSWERS

To the editor;

Re Protecting your children from substance abuse, Feb.
7

Angela Lawrence gives some excellent advice about how to handle the
drugs situation with our children, but how are parents supposed to
answer questions like these from the older kids about our drug laws?

Why are some harmful drugs banned and not others? Has the government
ever published scientific data proving that legal drugs are not as
dangerous as the illegal ones are? In fact, isn't it true that our
drug laws began a century ago as a means of suppressing certain
non-white minorities rather than to protect users from the effects of
those drugs?

Doesn't banning drugs cause more harm in terms of more crime, more
user deaths, etc. ,than if the drugs were available legally? Wouldn't
we be better off if all drugs were legal?

What is the purpose of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms if the state
is allowed to punish people for what they choose to ingest into their
own bodies. Don't free people have the right to harm themselves?

Does the government have the right to ban any behavior it does not
approve of even if that behavior does not directly harm anyone else?
Surely there must be limits. If not, why bother with a Charter?

Alan Randell

Victoria, BC