LOGIC LACKING IN ANTI-POT LETTER

Frank G. Sterle, Jr.'s letter (May 1-7 issue) displays typical anti-pot
argumentation. He asserts that he knows it is bad, and that his friends
know, too. He then produces a lengthy quotation from an authority to prove
that it's bad (but which really is a string of assertions). He tells us
that if we don't prohibit its consumption, we are legitimizing it and
falsely implying that it's harmless.

I could answer by disputing the claims of the authority or by rejecting the
idea that if something is bad for you the government must ban it (why not
pop, fatty foods, bleach, or gasoline cars, then?) but I won't. Lots of
others have already, and far better than I could. Let me instead point out
something missing from this argument: a moral consideration.

People consuming marijuana are sovereign individuals, just like Mr. Sterle;
no greater, no lesser. What I ask is, where did he--and so many
politicians, policemen, community "leaders" etc.--come by the idea that the
state should force their views--and at gunpoint, make no mistake about
it--on appropriate consumption on those individuals?

The philosophical base of this is not very nice; it's the idea that some
people are so superior to others that they acquire rights of ownership, as
though others were merely cattle, whose lives may be controlled and
disposed of by the superior race.

This smacks of 18th-century slaveholding, or far worse in the 20th. It's a
moral obscenity, and I think any prohibitionist who doesn't so see himself
ought to run far away from the movement before he gets tarred with that brush.

I don't smoke pot, and I don't do any other drugs, either. That's my
decision, for my body, and that's the only body I have any rights over.
Other people's bodies belong to them, and not to me (nor to Frank Sterle or
Jean Chretien, or John Ashcroft) so it is none of my goddamned business
what they do with them. I also believe that people who think otherwise are
far more harmful than all the drugs in the world. And that's why I am
working with the BC Marijuana Party to end this horrendous practice before
it is used to destroy us all.

Rob Gillespie

Financial agent, BCMP