TAKING DRUGS A VICE, NOT A CRIME

Dear Sir:

Someone ought to tell Provencher MP Vic Toews that sending moral messages
with the coercive force of the state is called a theocracy. Drug taking is
a vice, not a crime or a medical disorder. There is no law against
abortion, adultery or suicide, does that mean the government is sending a
message to the youth that those activities are sanctioned by society and
the prime minister wants everybody to give them a try?

I want to commend the Senate for standing up to the moralizers. It was a
mistake to raise the age for engaging in vice to 18 in the first place. Do
you really want your teens to get their moral lessons in life from their
peers after they have left home? Mr. Toews, I want first crack at teaching
my kid the evils of over-indulgence when s/he gets drunk, stoned or smokes
tobacco for the first time.

How are children ever supposed to learn responsibility for vice if we do
not allow them a few mistakes while they are at home? Ben Franklin was a
printer's apprentice at age 12. Society did not molly coddle teens less
than 100 years ago when chores and responsibility went hand in hand.

To reiterate my opinion, it is a mistake to do so now! "Vices are not
crimes" said Lysander Spooner in his classic 1875 essay. In vice the very
essence of crime, the harming of another individual or their property-is
wanting.

Mr. Toews ought not confuse the rule of law with the will of the tyrant.
Thomas Jefferson left mankind with the key natural rights principle, that
laws aren't legitimate just because a government says they are. Nor are
laws legitimate because they are the result of a democratic process. At
various times, it has been perfectly legal for governments to steal
property, to suppress free speech, to censor newspapers and to murder
people. The worst tyrants could usually point to some legal basis for their
actions.

To be legitimate, laws must conform to moral principles. They must support
each individual's equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. All so-called drug criminals are political criminals, according
to Jefferson and Spooner.

I urge Vic Toews to put drug prohibition to the four cardinal virtues test
of St. Thomas Aquinas. Prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude are
those virtues. Drug prohibition fails on all accounts.

The Special House Committee on the Non-Medicinal Use of Drugs is Orwellian
to say the least. The ceremonial aspect of drug taking is as old as mankind
is itself. The British and Japanese are more up front and call their drug
taking the "tea ceremony."

That will never see the light of day in the House of Commons "looking out
for special interest's committee." Restore our natural right to drugs, all
of them. It is a right owned by mankind since time began.

I will be happy to debate Mr. Toews on the issues of patents, prescription
rights and prohibition, the triple Ps of drug control, any time, any place.

Chris Buors Libertarian Candidate for Rossmere provincial riding Marijuana
Party Candidate for Winnipeg South