DRUG WAR SMOKE-SCREEN

Dear Editor:
This is regarding the Topsail High School drug bust article in your
March 27 edition. I hope the teachers at Topsail High School discuss
with their students why governments prohibit certain drugs. Here's my
take on it. Is it to protect users from harm? No, that can't be the
reason because users suffer more (adulterated drugs and jail time)
when a drug is banned as compared to when it is legally available.

My wife and I became well acquainted with this aspect of government
policy when we lost our 19-year-old son to street heroin in 1993.
Besides, two of our more dangerous drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are
legal. Is it to reduce the crime associated with illegal drugs? No,
that can't be the reason because banning a drug always gives rise to
more than when the drug is legally available. Is it to distract
attention away from more important issues by conducting a brutal,
Hitler-like pogrom to ruin the lives of the innocent few who ingest
or sell certain drugs - with the additional benefit of allowing our
politicians and cops the pleasure of strutting and preening 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 of
bigger budgets and free drugs for our police officers?

Bingo! Hitler's armies may have lost the war but, sadly, his ideas
seem to have found ready acceptance all across the civilized world.

Alan Randell Victoria, British Columbia