DRUG PROHIBITION A 'HITLER-LIKE HORROR'

Dear Editor:

Another day, another warmed over police press release served up by the
media to persuade us to support drug prohibition, a Hitler-like
government program intended to distract attention away from government
failures in other areas and to provide a measure of vicarious
enjoyment for the non-poor by persecuting the poor.

Drug prohibition began during the early years of the 20th century as a
means of suppressing blacks, Mexicans and Chinese by banning the drugs
these minorities used. Today, it has become a tool for the cops to
control and/or harass those whose appearance or lifestyle they
disapprove of.

As far as marijuana goes, this racially inspired crusade is getting a
bit silly.

Marijuana is, for all intents and purposes, a legal
drug.

The people have spoken. Millions of hard-working and productive
Canadians use the stuff, including some, I don't doubt, on your staff.
The police should be told to stop wasting their time and our money
pulling up plants and do what we pay them to do -- protect us from
dangerous criminals.

Besides, why should the cops get their marijuana free, while the rest
of us have to pay for it?

No government has the right to punish anyone for ingesting anything,
however harmful, including heroin and other "hard" drugs.

Therefore, please stop reporting on the drug war as if it were the
most normal thing in the world to jail people for what they choose to
ingest into their own bodies.

Please wake up and begin reporting on drug prohibition as the
Hitler-like horror it is.

Alan Randell
Victoria