OUR NATURAL RIGHT TO DRUGS

Judging by the uninformed opinion expressed at the end of Alan Randell's
June 4 letter, the editors have obviously never given any thought as to
what constitutes "medicine," prescribed or not. Unfortunately, Canadians
surrendered our natural right to drugs to the state about 100 years ago.
Instead of the individual making the decision as to what medicine is, the
authorities are now deciding what medicine is.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in his notes on Virginia, "Were the government to
prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping
as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a
medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as
infallible, (sic) too, when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent
to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere .... It is
error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Jefferson understood that the ugliest aspect of government control of
medicines is that the government also has to control the ideas about medicine.

That the editors of the Sun express their opinion that marijuana does not
offer the same benefits as prescription drugs proves to me just how
controlled and ignorant that opinion is. Jefferson was right.

Chris Buors

(Sounds like a licence to quackery to us)