DRUG LAWS ARE HURTING OUR COMMUNITIES

Editor:

Re: Shots fired in grow house bust, Dec. 19.

Lord, save us from a free, but lazy press.

At a time when your drug laws are being questioned as never before,
how is it possible that, as far as one can determine, your reporter
failed to ask the police officer a single question about the efficacy
or otherwise of the law prohibiting certain drugs? Isn't that what
reporters are supposed to do, ask questions?

Here are a few pertinent questions your reporter should ask the next
time a drug cop crows about the latest drug bust:

1. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms implies that citizens have the
right to pursue their own form of happiness so long as they hurt no
one else. Thus it seems Canadians have the right to ingest any drug,
however harmful. Why do you feel the government has the right to
punish individuals for what they choose to ingest into their own
bodies and jail those who supply them?

2. If drugs are banned because they are harmful to users, why, then,
are tobacco and alcohol not banned? Doesn't this seem unfair to those
who prefer illegal drugs? If we ban one harmful drug, shouldn't we
ban all harmful drugs?

3. Is it not true that, far from protecting users from harm, banning
a drug harms them much more than would otherwise be the case because
it cuts them off from access to drugs of known potency and purity?
Weren't thousands of Americans poisoned or blinded by adulterated
alcohol during Prohibition. Didn't the problems vanish when alcohol
was legalized again?

4. Many have characterized drug prohibition as nothing less than a
Hitler-like government pogrom designed, first to ostracize, and then,
to annihilate an identifiable minority of innocent people. Would you
feel hard done by if you were sentenced to a few years in jail for
your part in enforcing drug prohibition?

5. Is it your position that the police are duty bound to enforce any
law no matter how unjust? Would you, for example, help to enforce a
law requiring the imprisonment of all Jews? Adolph Eichmann protested
He was simply following orders when he assisted in implementing
Hitler's Final Solution but the Israelis hanged him anyway. Did he
get a raw deal in your estimation?

6. Is there any way that we can be assured that any of the police
officers involved didn't take some of the drugs for their own use?

7. The 1973 Le Dain Commission concluded, "There appears to be little
permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate
narcotics." Why, then, ban heroin?

8. If prohibition is so great, why did America give up on the
prohibition of alcohol?

9. Is it not true that if drugs and prostitution were legalized, the
power of the Hells Angels would be severely curtailed? After all,
Prohibition created Al Capone, not the other way around.

10. Is it not true that if marijuana were legalized, marijuana grow
operations would be no more dangerous, do no more damage and steal no
more hydro than the average tomato grow operation?

11. I've been told that police officers support laws like our drug
laws because they increase crime and hence police budgets and police
power. In fact, I'm told they would be in seventh heaven if tobacco
and/or alcohol were banned. Is that true?

For me, there is no more reason to punish drug users and dealers
today than there was in the past to hang witches, lynch blacks,
incarcerate Japanese Canadians or gas Jews.

On second thoughts, perhaps it's not laziness on your reporter's part
after all. Publishers and editors have always believed that the
routine enforcement of unjust laws sells newspapers so there's little
chance you will allow your reporters to do other than cheer the cops
on.

"Black woman refuses to leave the whites only section of the bus.
Officials warn that more severe punishments are needed to control the
increasing number of uppity niggers."

"Blasphemous witch dragged screaming from her home. Expected to be
hanged before end of month if court time can be found.

Black youth dragged from his home and lynched before an approving
crowd. Police spokesman admits leads are few and that killers may
never be found."

"600 Jews seized in local raids. Not many more left, crow law
enforcement officials"

No, I don't have too much respect for the police these days, or the media.

Alan Randell,
Quesnel