AMERICAN DRUG TREATMENT RECALLS THE HORRORS OF THE SOVIET GULAG

What letter writer Scott Weaver supports has a different name in the
historical texts (The NEWS, Aug. 15). Drug treatment is more readily
recognized as forced religious conversion of morals. It is an ancient and
honorable practice in Christian culture, and it is what Thomas Jefferson
and the founding father sought to protect Americans from when church and
state were separated.

Today, moral cleanliness is next to godliness in the eyes of Americans who
support drug prohibition. This policy of moral hygiene is readily
comparable to the racial hygiene policy of Nazi Germany.

Americans were appalled when they learned that Soviet Russia was "treating"
capitalists in psychiatric wards. The Soviet Gulag released dissidents when
they corrected their behavior to embrace socialism. Same with Mao's
re-education camps.

The American Gulag is eerily reminiscent of both the Soviets and the
Chinese. Having to arrest people to treat them is called persecution in the
history books. Harming people by giving them criminal records in the name
of helping them with drug problems is about as ugly as it gets. Forced
religious conversion has always appealed to the believers. What was it
Jefferson said? "Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women
and children since the introduction of Christianity have been burnt,
tortured, fined and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward
uniformity."

Addiction is the fear preyed upon by prohibitionists. The theory never
proven. Addictions are eerily similar to voodoo in belief that supernatural
forces can destroy free will. It is always forgotten that masturbatory
insanity was the chief psychiatric destroyer of will theory before
addictions came along. Addictions are stigmatizing terms that are
culturally conditioned. All drugs are made of chemicals found on the
periodic table and none has supernatural powers of allurement.

There is another option Americans can try. It worked to solve the Christian
Crusaders' "Muslim problem." It worked to solve the Spanish Inquisition's
"Jew witch and Heretic problem," and it is the only time- and
culture-tested idea that does work. Americans could simply leave drug users
alone.

"Were the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies
would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic
was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food.
Government is just as infallible [sic], too, when it fixes systems in
physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth
was a sphere... It is error alone which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself." -- Thomas Jefferson

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada