DRUG USERS ALSO HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS

I HAVE a few questions for you about your paper's enthusiastic support for
drug prohibition:

Do you agree with these words taken from the American Declaration of
Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness"?

Doesn't this imply that people have the right to ingest any drug in pursuit
of their particular version of happiness, however harmful, so long as they
physically harm no one else?

Is it not true that banning a drug harms users more, because it forces
them to rely on a drug whose potency and purity are unknown?

Is it not true that, far from making life safer, banning a drug
encourages more crime and violence than when the drug was legally available?

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

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?

Is it not true that if methamphetamine were legalised, the manufacturing
process would be subject to government safety regulations and would hence
be no more dangerous to the workers, to the neighbours or to the
environment than the average distillery is today?

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

If prohibition is so great, why did America give up on the prohibition
of alcohol? 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-Americans or gas Jews.

Drug prohibition is nothing less than a state-sanctioned pogrom directed
against an identifiable minority (innocent drug users and distributors) to
first, ostracise them, and then, to annihilate them.

Alan Randell, Victoria, BC, Canada.