DRUGS ARE USEFUL SCAPEGOATS

Editor, The Record:

I have a few questions for Robert Rock about his evident support for
drug prohibition.

1. If drugs are banned because they are harmful to users, why, then,
are tobacco and alcohol not banned? Doesn't this seem unfair to those
who prefer illegal drugs? If we ban one harmful drug, shouldn't we ban
all harmful drugs?

2. Is it not true that, far from protecting users from harm, banning a
drug harms them much more than would otherwise be the case because it
cuts them off from access to drugs of known potency and purity?
Weren't thousands of Americans poisoned or blinded by adulterated
alcohol during Prohibition? Didn't the problems vanish when alcohol
was legalized again?

3. Doesn't drug prohibition CAUSE street-level drug dealing? Why would
anyone buy drugs in the street if the corner store sells them?

4. Is it not true that if drugs were legalized, the flow of funds to
terrorist groups would dry up? How much money does Osama bin Laden
make from booze and tobacco?

5. The 1973 Le Dain Commission concluded, "There appears to be little
permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate
narcotics." Why, then, ban heroin?

6. If prohibition is so great, why did America give up on the
prohibition of alcohol?

7. Is it not true that if drugs and prostitution were legalized, the
power of the Hells Angels would be severely curtailed? After all,
Prohibition created Al Capone, not the other way around.

8. Is it not true that if marijuana were legalized, marijuana grow
operations would be no more dangerous, do no more damage and steal no
more hydro than the average tomato grow operation?

For me, there is no more reason to punish drug users and dealers today
than there was in the past to hang witches, lynch blacks, incarcerate
Japanese-Canadians or gas Jews. 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

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