Pubdate: Tue, 31 May 2005
Source: Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.langleyadvance.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1248
Author: Chris Buors

DRAGON PERSECUTED

Dear Editor,

"Prohibition works" is the message in your editorial [Meth menace, May 13 
Comment, Langley Advance News]. All the same old demonizations are made 
against the latest drug-de-jour, crystal meth.

Addiction is the dragon the fear-mongering crowd likes to trot out. St. 
George is given every encouragement in his battle to slay the dragon. All 
scapegoat persecutions are modeled on St. George.

Those on the front lines of this battle have a vested interest in 
prohibition as public policy. What is really needed is an anthropologist to 
come by and explain drug-taking from a ceremonial and ritual point of view.

Well, Canadians have avoided any truth about drugs since they absolved 
themselves of the responsibility for their own drug-taking with Canada's 
first drug law, The Opium Narcotic Act of 1908, which "medicalized" drugs. 
Today, politicians, not doctors, decide what is and isn't medicine. Canada 
has become a therapeutic state. We have evolved from the theologic state to 
do our moralizing in medical terms, now that state and medicine are married.

Your readers ought to work towards ensuring that a safe supply of crystal 
meth is available at the pharmacy, if they want to put all the underground 
labs out of business. The more important consequence would be that fewer 
users would come to harm.

It's time to separate state and medicine, and to start dealing with the 
truth from a pharmacological as well as anthropological point of view.

Chris Buors

Winnipeg, Manitoba 
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MAP posted-by: Beth