DRUG LAWS MAKE NO SENSE

Editor: In regard to "Drug problem doesn't skip Marshfield" of May 2: Our
drug laws make no sense whatsoever. Not only are they an affront to the
constitution, not only do they send crime rates into the stratosphere, not
only do they hurt users rather than help them, they 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
pogrom 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, 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. As to why you and your media colleagues support this
brutal and unconstitutional war on drugs, I can only surmise that tragedy,
suffering and war sell more newspapers and attract higher TV ratings
ratings than happiness, contentment and peace.

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 across the "free world."

Alan and Eleanor Randell, Victoria, BC, V8N 6E3, Canada