TRAGEDY, SUFFERING SELL NEWSPAPERS

Re: Cop gives anti-drug lecture tomorrow (Reporter, April 9).

In publishing propaganda such as this, your publication continues to be a
vital cog in the state's brutal campaign to persecute a minority of
innocent people. Whatever will you tell your grandchildren?

Let me to explain.

The growth of democracy was supposed to ensure that governments would
remain the servant of the people rather than their master and that the
rights of the minorities would be protected. Unfortunately the development
of high-circulation newspapers enabled democratic governments to do as
Hitler did:

Persuade the majority (including, to its everlasting shame, the judiciary)
that it's OK to operate a brutal and vicious pogrom against a powerless
minority.

A case in point? The war on drugs.

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, they 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, they 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.

As to why your publication supports 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.

Alan and Eleanor Randell

Victoria, B.C.