STOP TRICKING KIDS ABOUT DRUGS

To the editor:

Re: Lance Anderson's column on Friday Nov. 28, 2003

Perhaps Lance Anderson can explain why the alcohol trade is brisk in Saudi
Arabia if stiffer punishment deters drug users? Thailand lines drug dealers
up against the wall and shoots them, so does China.

There are still plenty more risk takers to replace those dealt with in the
most brutal of regimes no matter what the substance prohibited is.

Pictures of Al Capone behind bars did not stop one single drinker from
indulging their vice. Frank Nitty, Capone's right hand man, saw to that.

Nitty was still around, but out of a job once prohibition was repealed.

Grossing teens out works up until the day teens learn that John F. Kennedy
and Elvis Presley, the mythic icons of their grandparents, would be labeled
as junkies by today's standard. Both those individuals traveled around with
their doctors close at hand to give them happy shots any time they wanted one.

So Lance, the trick is to quit trying to trick the kids. How about we tell
kids and adults too the truth about ceremonial and ritual drug use?

Never heard of drug use in those terms?

It's because we have lied to ourselves for so long that we cannot even
think out of the government's "all non-medical use of drugs is abuse" box
anymore.

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Manitoba