News (Media Awareness Project) - CN ON: PUB LTE: Writer Takes Issue With Country's Drug Laws |
| Title: | CN ON: PUB LTE: Writer Takes Issue With Country's Drug Laws |
| Published On: | 2002-06-04 |
| Source: | Daily Press, The (CN ON) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-01-23 05:48:11 |
WRITER TAKES ISSUE WITH COUNTRY'S DRUG LAWS, MEDIA COVERAGE
RE: KAP OPP seize over $200, 000 in illicit drugs, June 1.
Our drug laws make no sense whatsoever.
Not only are they an affront to the constitution, not only do they send
crime rats into the stratosphere, not only do they hurt users rather than
help them, they also fail the test of logic.
If drugs are banned because they are harmful, why don't we ban tobacco and
alcohol?
These laws are nothing less than a state sanctioned, Hitler-like program
designed to divert our attention from more important issues by ruining the
lives of the innocent few who happen to use or sell certain drugs.
How did the politicians win our approval, or at least our acceptance, of
such a manifestly evil crusade? The media, in two ways.
First of all, you immerse us in a torrent of "objective" accounts of the
mayhem without allowing the victims' stories to be told; gradually we are
persuaded "they only have themselves to blame."
Second, you never miss an opportunity to allow those who profit from the
drug laws (cops, drug experts, prosecutors, politicians, etc.)to tell their
stories, while allowing only the occasional op-ed or letter from those who
oppose the law.
If you want to know how it came to be that most Germans acquiesced to
Hitler's policies towards the Jews, you only have to realize that a flood
of "news" stories like this has made us think that rousting innocent people
off to jail is normal.
We shrug and turn the page.
Are we better than the Nazis because our drug laws threaten an innocent
minority with jail rather than with execution? I think not.
Are you better than the German newspaper editors who published anti-Jew
propaganda as ordered by Hitler's government?
Considering you have the option to be objective about the state's drug war
on its own citizens rather than simply acting as a conduit for the
dissemination of government propaganda, I would say you're a lot worse.
Unless the media change their ways, I fear that police states will soon be
established all cross the "free world."
Alan Randell
RE: KAP OPP seize over $200, 000 in illicit drugs, June 1.
Our drug laws make no sense whatsoever.
Not only are they an affront to the constitution, not only do they send
crime rats into the stratosphere, not only do they hurt users rather than
help them, they also fail the test of logic.
If drugs are banned because they are harmful, why don't we ban tobacco and
alcohol?
These laws are nothing less than a state sanctioned, Hitler-like program
designed to divert our attention from more important issues by ruining the
lives of the innocent few who happen to use or sell certain drugs.
How did the politicians win our approval, or at least our acceptance, of
such a manifestly evil crusade? The media, in two ways.
First of all, you immerse us in a torrent of "objective" accounts of the
mayhem without allowing the victims' stories to be told; gradually we are
persuaded "they only have themselves to blame."
Second, you never miss an opportunity to allow those who profit from the
drug laws (cops, drug experts, prosecutors, politicians, etc.)to tell their
stories, while allowing only the occasional op-ed or letter from those who
oppose the law.
If you want to know how it came to be that most Germans acquiesced to
Hitler's policies towards the Jews, you only have to realize that a flood
of "news" stories like this has made us think that rousting innocent people
off to jail is normal.
We shrug and turn the page.
Are we better than the Nazis because our drug laws threaten an innocent
minority with jail rather than with execution? I think not.
Are you better than the German newspaper editors who published anti-Jew
propaganda as ordered by Hitler's government?
Considering you have the option to be objective about the state's drug war
on its own citizens rather than simply acting as a conduit for the
dissemination of government propaganda, I would say you're a lot worse.
Unless the media change their ways, I fear that police states will soon be
established all cross the "free world."
Alan Randell
Member Comments |
No member comments available...
