Pubdate: Tue, 08 Dec 1998 Date: 08/12/1998 Source: NOW Community (Canada) Author: Alan Randell I agree totally with your August 1 editorial, "This is your gov't on drugs," that the long-suffering BC taxpayer should not be forced to ante up the money to provide free drugs to individuals diagnosed by doctors as "addicts," as was recently recommended by Dr. John Millar, BC's provincial health officer - but not for the reason you gave. You oppose it because you don't think it will reduce crime and enable users to live a more normal existence, even though a number of studies have indicated that it does. Even if you are correct, would you not agree that our current policies are not working and that we have to change SOMETHING? Consider the following: 1. The State has no more right to prohibit drugs than it has to prohibit licorice. Canadian men and women have the right to ingest any substance whether or not State doctors feel they are harmful, or even lethal. As John Stuart Mill explained it, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." 2. The prohibition of drugs has no basis in fact or in law. It is a hate campaign pure and simple, a pogrom, a Holocaust, a "final solution" sponsored by the rich and powerful against the weak and powerless. 3. The prohibition of drugs harms users as they are denied access to substances of known purity and potency. Thousands were poisoned during the prohibition of alcohol in the US. 4. The prohibition of drugs creates crime by forcing the price of these substances up so high that a substantial number of users have to resort to crime in order to finance their habit. If the cigarette smoker can pick up his supply for a few dollars at the corner store on his way home from work, why shouldn't the heroin or cocaine user be free to do likewise? Why should he be forced to spend the whole day stealing enough money to pay for his particular habit? Drug prohibition is arguably the greatest evil of our time. I invite you, and indeed all your readers, to take the time to find out the facts about drug prohibition and stop listening to our political and law enforcement leaders who have a vested interest in continuing the persecution of innocent drug users. Alan Randell