THE FRAUD OF THE DRUG WAR

Editor:

I have a few questions about the Delta Democrat Times' enthusiastic support
of drug prohibition:

Do you agree with these words taken from the 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?

By "harm," I don't mean making your family unhappy, otherwise we would be
jailing every divorced parent and every child who didn't do his or her
homework.

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? Weren't thousands
of alcohol users poisoned and blinded during Prohibition?

Didn't the dying and the blinding stop when alcohol was legalized again?

Is it not true that, far from making life safer for everyone, banning a
drug encourages more crime and violence than when the drug was legally
available? Did Al Capone create Prohibition or was it the other way around?

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?

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 meth were legalized, the manufacturing process would
be subject to government safety regulations and would hence be no more
dangerous to the workers, to the neighbors or to the environment than the
average distillery is today?

If a constitutional amendment was required to ban alcohol, why was an
amendment not required to ban drugs?

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?

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

Alan Randell,

Victoria, British Columbia,