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QUESTIONS STREET SMART ARTICLE

Questions 'street Smart' Article Re HRMC Employees Get 'street Smart', July 11

I'm glad to see your police officers venture into the community to acquaint others with street slang surrounding drugs.  I'm less happy, though, to see the police talking about "the impact drugs can have on the county" which is presumably a means for the police to persuade the audience that drug prohibition is a good idea.

I would like to be a fly on the wall when an audience member asks a few probing questions about drug prohibition:

1.  Where is it written in the Bill of Rights that the state has the right to punish people for what they choose to ingest into their own bodies?

2.  If an amendment ( the 18th ) to the constitution was needed to ban alcohol, why was an amendment not needed to ban drugs?

3.  If drugs are banned because it is harmful to users, why, then, are tobacco and alcohol not banned?

4.  In 1973, Canada's Le Dain commission concluded, "There appears to be little permanent physiological damage from chronic use of pure opiate narcotics." Why, then, ban heroin?

5.  If prohibition is so great, why did America give up on Prohibition?

6.  I've been told that police officers support laws like our drug laws because they increase crime and hence police budgets and police power.  In fact, I'm told they would be in seventh heaven if tobacco or alcohol were banned.  Would you care to comment?

For me, there is no more reason to punish drug users today than there was in the past to hang witches, lynch blacks or gas Jews.  Alan Randell 1821 Knutsford Place Victoria, BC, V8N 6E3, Canada