Pubdate: Thu, 14 Aug 2003
Source: Goldstream Gazette (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 Goldstream Gazette
Contact:  http://www.goldstreamgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1291
Author: Alan Randell
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03.n1162.a11.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

STUDENTS ARE GETTING THE WRONG MESSAGE IF THEY'RE TOLD TO JUST SAY
'NO' TO DRUGS

With respect to the July 30, News Gazette article headlined Ruth King
students dare to say no to using drugs, the issue is not so much that
children should avoid drugs but that users of certain drugs are
considered criminals, which is ridiculous.

I suspect the cops do not attempt to indoctrinate kids older than
Grade 6 or so because older kids might ask tough questions like these.

Why are you presenting the program and not someone who really knows
about drugs, such as a user or physician?

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms implies that citizens have the
right to pursue their own form of happiness so long as they harm no
one else. Thus it seems Canadians have the right to ingest any drug,
however harmful.

Why do you feel the government has the right to punish individuals for
what they choose to ingest into their own bodies and jail those who
supply them?

By harm I don't mean causing anguish to friends and family otherwise
we would jail all divorcing parents along with any kid who didn't do
his or her homework. I mean direct, physical harm.

If drugs are banned because they are harmful to users, why then are
tobacco and alcohol not banned?

Doesn't this seem unfair to those who prefer illegal drugs? If we ban
one harmful drug, shouldn't we ban all harmful drugs?

Is it not true, that far from protecting users from harm, banning a
drug harms them much more than would otherwise be the case because it
cuts them off from access to drugs of known potency and purity?

Weren't thousands of Americans poisoned or blinded by adulterated
alcohol during Prohibition?

Didn't the problems vanish when alcohol was legalized
again?

Wasn't drug prohibition initiated a century ago as a racist program to
oppress certain non-white minorities and to protect virtuous, white,
Christian women from their seductive wiles by banning the drugs used
by those minorities?

The 1973 Le Dain Commission concluded, "There appears to be little
permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate
narcotics." Why then ban heroin?

If prohibition is so great why did America give up on the prohibition
of alcohol?

Is it not true that if drugs and prostitution were legalized the power
of the Hells Angels would be severely curtailed? After all Prohibition
created Al Capone not the other way around.

Is it not true that if marijuana were legalized, marijuana grow
operations would be no more dangerous, do no more damage and steal no
more hydro than the average tomato grow operation?

Alan Randell

Victoria
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin