Source: Financial Post 
Contact:  
Pubdate: January 17, 1998

RIGHT TO TOKE

Ted Byfield's piece, "Curbing Risk-Taking Denies An Essential Human
Instinct" (Jan. 10) misses the point by a country kilometre. It's not so
much that The Nanny State he so rightfully chastises would be better
advised not to prohibit its citizens from taking risks, it is the fact that
the Nanny State has no right to do so.

One example.

To its shame, "caring and compassionate" Canada imprisons thousands of
innocent citizens just because they happen to prefer drugs not ingested or
approved by the majority of the population. "But we're only trying to keep
them from harming themselves" pontificates the sanctimonious majority and
its hypocritical political representatives.

Free adults have a right to ingest any drug. Drug prohibition is an obscenity.

Alan Randell