Pubdate: Thu, 02 May 2002
Source: Valley Voice, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 The Valley Voice
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/1388
Note: No known website. Contact data not verified.
Author: Chris Buors

RESTORE RIGHT TO TAKE DRUGS

One of the scare tactics and pieces of untruthful information Cst. 
Mick Wicentowich uses in his letter to the editor is his assertion 
that there is such a thing as "harder drugs such as cocaine."

The World Health Organization informed the world three years ago that 
alcohol and tobacco were by far more harmful than heroin, cocaine and 
cannabis.  It is only on the demonization scale where the concept of 
'harder drugs' exists.  All drugs are combinations of chemicals found 
in the periodic table. Dr. Andrew Wiel concluded in his bestseller 
book "From Chocolate to Morphine" that there was no such thing as a 
good drug or a bad drug, only good or bad relationships with drugs.

What the well-intentioned constable does not understand is that it is 
not the purpose of police to teach children.  The police exert subtle 
influence and that influence gives credence to whatever their 
position is.  That observation did not escape Joseph Goebbels, Nazi 
propaganda minister.

The idea that drugs are so dangerous that they have to be controlled 
is political.  John Stuart Mill and Thomas Jefferson, classic 
liberals, did not believe that the state ought to control drugs in 
any respect.  No patent rights, no prescription rights and no 
prohibitions.  Classic liberalism is better known as libertarianism 
today.

As a Libertarian, I have to argue politics with Communists, the New 
Democrats, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Alliance and all 
other political entities.  I ask Cst. Wicentowich why it is I have to 
argue politics with the police.  The ceremonial aspect of drug taking 
is as old as mankind is itself; is that taught in DARE?

The police have no political opinion on abortion, no political 
opinion on the deficit, no political opinion on any other topic 
except drugs; why is that?  Cst. Wicentowich is blinded by his good 
intentions.  He does not see that the police in Canada and America, 
in the name of the drug war, have become no better than the Gestapo. 
After all, the Gestapo only wanted to instill the 'right' morals in 
the children too.

Drug taking is a vice, not a crime or a medical disorder.  Restore 
our natural right to drugs, all of them.  It is a right mankind has 
owned since time began.

"Were the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our 
bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.  Thus in France 
the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an 
article of food. Government is just as infallible, [sic] too, when it 
fixes systems in physics.  Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for 
affirming that the earth was a sphere...It is error alone which needs 
the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." - Thomas 
Jefferson

Chris Buors Winnipeg
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