Pubdate: Sun, 03 Mar 2002
Source: Spokesman-Review (WA)
Copyright: 2002 The Spokesman-Review
Contact:  http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/417
Author: Alan Randell

THE ANTI-DRUG CRUSADE BRINGS SUFFERING

Re: "Deputy prosecuting attorney honored for anti-drug work'' (Feb. 23).

Our drug laws are nothing less than a brutal Hitler-like pogrom designed to 
distract our attention from more important issues (and to provide bigger 
budgets and free drugs for our police officers) by ruining the lives of the 
innocent few who ingest or sell certain drugs.

Despite all the talk about how the Holocaust must never happen again, it is 
happening again, all around us. Only the victims this time are the users of 
certain drugs instead of Jews.

Like the German people before us, the media have lulled us into tolerating 
state-sanctioned evil. Those who do not use illegal drugs have become 
acclimatized to the cops' incessant hounding of those innocent souls who 
do. We shrug and turn the page.

Please make your drug stories less one-sided in favor of the cops. Please 
include the comments of the individuals arrested and their families as well 
as, wherever possible, the comments of someone who opposes these laws.

In short, please try to put a human face on the suffering.

Alan Randell
Victoria, B.C.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart