THE ANTI-DRUG CRUSADE BRINGS SUFFERING

Re: "Deputy prosecuting attorney honored for anti-drug work'' (Feb. 23).

Our drug laws are nothing less than a brutal Hitler-like pogrom designed to
distract our attention from more important issues (and to provide bigger
budgets and free drugs for our police officers) by ruining the lives of the
innocent few who ingest or sell certain drugs.

Despite all the talk about how the Holocaust must never happen again, it is
happening again, all around us. Only the victims this time are the users of
certain drugs instead of Jews.

Like the German people before us, the media have lulled us into tolerating
state-sanctioned evil. Those who do not use illegal drugs have become
acclimatized to the cops' incessant hounding of those innocent souls who
do. We shrug and turn the page.

Please make your drug stories less one-sided in favor of the cops. Please
include the comments of the individuals arrested and their families as well
as, wherever possible, the comments of someone who opposes these laws.

In short, please try to put a human face on the suffering.

Alan Randell
Victoria, B.C.