Pubdate: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 Source: Esquimalt News (CN BC) Copyright: 2002 Esquimalt News Contact: http://www.esquimaltnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1290 Author: Alan Randell DRUG LAWS ARE FASCIST In response to Esquimalt News' Police Briefs, on March 25, titled "Grow-op bust." Why do governments prohibit certain drugs? Is it to protect users from harm? That can't be the reason because users suffer more - using adulterated drugs and serving jail time - when a drug is banned than when it is legally available. Besides, the most dangerous drugs of all, alcohol and tobacco, are legal. Banning a drug gives rise to more crime (drug cartels, petty crime by users, violent disputes between dealers) than when the drug is legally available. Our drug laws are nothing less than a brutal Hitler-like program designed to distract our attention from more important issues by ruining the lives of the innocent few who ingest or sell certain drugs. How was it possible that a majority of the German people was persuaded to accept, if not support, Hitler's brutal policies? One of the reasons might well have been a stream of "objective" newspaper accounts of the terror that were written in such an uncritical, matter-of-fact fashion that it seemed to the reader that persecuting Jews was "normal". Like the German people before us, the media have lulled us into tolerating state sanctioned evil. Assuming you care about innocent people being carted off to jail, please make sure your drug bust stories are less one-sided in favour of the cops by including the comments of the individuals arrested and their families as well as, wherever possible, the comments of someone who opposes these laws. Alan Randell Knutsford Place - --- MAP posted-by: Beth