MEDIA TO BLAME FOR ASSISTING IN 'EVIL CRUSADE' TO OSTRACIZE AND DESTROY
THOSE WHO USE DRUGS

Re: Growing marijuana has become big business in Ontario where grow house
arrests are on the rise (Apr. 3, The Post)

Why do governments ban certain drugs?

It can't be to protect users because banning a drug always leads to more
deaths amongst users, not fewer.

My wife and I became well acquainted with that aspect of government policy
when we lost our 19-year-old son to street heroin in 1993.

It can't be to reduce the crime associated with drugs because banning a
drug always gives rise to more crime than when the drug is legally available.

So what else could it be other than to distract attention away from more
important issues by conducting a brutal pogrom, first to ostracize and then
to destroy the innocent few who ingest or sell certain drugs.

This has the additional "benefit" of allowing our politicians and cops,
along with their media sycophants, the pleasure of strutting and swaggering
before us as they promise to ride out like St. George and slay the fearsome
and deadly dragon of drugs while sticking the taxpayer with the cost?

How did the politicians win our approval, or at least our acceptance, of
such a manifestly evil crusade? The media, in two ways.

First, it immerses 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, the media never misses an opportunity to allow those who profit
from the drug laws (cops, drug experts, prosecutors, politicians) to tell
their stories while allowing only the occasional letter from those who
oppose the law.

As to why do the media support a brutal government pogrom like our drug
laws, I can only surmise that tragedy, suffering and war sell more
newspapers and leads to higher TV ratings than happiness, contentment and
peace.

How should we describe the relationship between politicians who engage in
such a loathsome pogrom and the media that support it?

Axis of Evil sounds about right to me.

Alan Randell

Victoria, B.C (by e-mail)