DRUG LAWS CREATE CRIME, INJUSTICE

When I was young, I believed that the lawmakers in Ottawa who created
the drug laws were "the good guys" and that the users of illegal drugs
were "the bad guys."

They were breaking the law, so they must be the bad
guys.

Now that I'm old and wiser, I believe I had it backwards. The users of
drugs are "the good guys," except if they harm or risk harming others,
at which point they become "the bad guys."

I now believe the lawmakers are "the bad guys." They created the
illegal drug gangs, which could not exist without the drug laws. They
brand people as criminals for possessing some substances, although
they aren't harming others. They passed laws violating the guarantee
of freedom of conscience and religion (Hindu religious use of cannabis
was documented in 1893-94 in the report of the Indian Hemp Drugs
Commission, but there is no provision for lawful religious use in
either Canadian or United Nationssponsored cannabis control
legislation.)

Freedom of conscience is guaranteed "subject only to such reasonable
limits as can be demonstrably justified." In 1997, Justice John McCart
of the Ontario Court, after hearing testimony from numerous expert
witnesses, concluded that "consumption of marijuana is relatively
harmless compared to tobacco and alcohol."

Is it reasonable to brand someone a criminal, on grounds of concern
for health, for their use of the least harmful of the three
substances? It seems our lawmakers, who have confused personal health
issues with criminal justice issues, are the real lawbreakers.

John Yearsley

Hornby Island