'VICES NOT CRIMES'

Dear Editor:

Someone ought to inform letter writer M.E. Jollimore (Sept. 12) that Canada
has a legal system. If we had a justice system, there would be no laws to
control our drugs. Michael Patriquen and all drug dealers are political
criminals.

"Vices are not crimes," wrote American jurist Lysander Spooner in his
classic 1875 essay. "Crime implies harm to another person or their
property. Vices are harms we do to ourselves. In vice, the very essence of
crime . . . is wanting." Are the drug laws moral? Well, let's put them to
the four cardinal virtues test of St. Thomas Aquinas. Prudence, temperance,
justice and fortitude are those virtues and drug prohibition fails on every
count.

Thomas Jefferson left mankind 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 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 pursuit of happiness.

Chris Buors, Winnipeg, Man.