Pubdate: Monday 01 November 1999 Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB) Copyright: 1999 Calgary Herald Contact: P.O. Box 2400, Stn. M, Calgary, Alberta T2P 0W8 Fax: (403) 235-7379 Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/ Forum: http://forums.canada.com/~calgary Author: Alan Randell Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n1153/a06.html THE WAR ON DRUGS HAS FAILED (1 of 7) Herald readers believe regulating the illicit drug trade would clean up crime, overdoses and addictions Ever since February 1993 when our youngest son, Peter, fell asleep after ingesting some street heroin, never to wake again, I have read everything I could about drugs and drug policy, and I don't think I have ever seen such a relentlessly stupid editorial on the subject as this one. Your argument for maintaining the prohibition of certain drugs appears to rest solely on your astoundingly naive belief that only illicit drugs are "mind-altering." If nicotine and alcohol were not mind altering, if they did not affect the way we feel, the way we perceive the world around us, who would ingest them? Try offering a pint of water to a golfer instead of beer at the nineteenth hole at your local golf course. As for your apparent belief that users of illegal drugs are unable to live normal lives, Dr. William Stewart Halsted (1852-1922), one of the greatest of American surgeons, was a morphine addict from the age of thirty-four until he died. All this is trivia though compared to this basic truth: the state does not have the right to punish people for what they choose to ingest into their own bodies. Alan Randell, Victoria, BC - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D