ADDICTS DON'T NEED POISON

Marc Emery's manifesto amazed me (Pot advocate aims for mayor's chair, May
2). What Vancouver's dire dichotomy of drug addiction truly needs is a
maverick mayor with a major case of the munchies.

Perhaps my idealistic, quixotic belief in the intrinsic worth of human
beings is clouding my perception. On the other hand, perhaps heroin addicts
should not be forgotten, lost in a long line of statistics, subjected to a
life of government-endorsed penitentiary time, shackled by the chains of
chronic crack smoking.

Mr. Emery, perhaps in your Draconian theorizing about keeping suffering
addicts suffering, you should be informed there is a way out. Addicts
aren't bad people trying to become good -- they're sick people, who need to
get better. Feeding them the poison that is killing them is myopic and
morbidly self-serving.

Parry Malm

Coquitlam