DRUG-TRADE BATTLE A MISGUIDED CRUSADE

Re: New anti-gang unit will battle drug trade. Justice Minister Gord
Mackintosh might just as well announce that he is going to war on lust
because that is what doing battle with the drug trade amounts to.

Trillions of dollars of public funds have been spent on this misguided
moral crusade already and I can think of no greater example of poetic
justice than to have the Hells Angels arise to serve the black market.
George Orwell could not have thought of a better moniker for an example of
back draft.

The police, we have been told, have targeted "the big players" for the last
40 years with absolutely no results other than costing the taxpayers about
a trillion dollars on the make-work projects loved by law enforcement. The
police look like heroes chasing evil drug dealers from one end of town to
the other, never accomplishing their stated goals since sending one "big
player" to jail merely opens the marketplace for the next big player.

For example, we were all led to understand that Pablo Escobar was the cause
of all the world's problems. The powers that be hunted him down and shot
him to death in the 1980s, making room for the Cali Cartel to take control.
Well, the Cali Cartel has long since come and gone and still drugs got
cheaper and more plentiful in Canada and the United States.

The Winnipeg police, RCMP, the provincial justice minister and most
Canadians understand this is all an exercise in futility, but it sure makes
good headlines to make it seem as if the authorities are doing "something."
Moral righteousness is expensive for police and accomplishes little other
than ruining the lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

The law is not the proper instrument to solve social and moral problems.
The only results other than changing the names of the players will be to
breed even more disrespect for the law than there already is into another
generation of Canadians.

CHRIS BUORS

Winnipeg