Try a lot more self esteem and a lot less bull

Vancouver's mayor Sam Sullivan met with the dinosaurs of the drug movement today as they made their case for a bigger chunk of the drug war pie.In a move that would virtually duplicate the recent campaign by the Harper Conservatives,they want to lecture youth as young as seven years old on the perils of drug use.These people are hard line abstinence proponents and think all drugs belong in the same book.They are the left over just say no crowd that want a drug free world and actually think they can make one happen.It's like the sixties never happened.There was no Viet Nam and Happy Days was a true story.Drugs are for the negroes and jazz musicians and have no place in a white bread world.If I sound a tad bitter it's because it's people like these that are maintaining the ridiculous drug laws that are destroying society as we know it.I have no beef with their desire to give children a sense of self and some self confidence.It's just that there are a lot of kids that have really horrible lives.This province has the worst child poverty in Canada and these people want more money for a drug awareness program that is based on a myth.There are better ways to spend our money and drug education should be fact based and not a diatribe of prohibitionist non-sense.I too think it's vital to give our youth the information necessary to allow them to make informed decisions on their drug use or lack of it.To use campaigns that lump marijuana in with heroin and speed is the kind of programs that have given youth the false impression that marijuana is addictive and no worse than heroin.That might be alright in an abstinence world but it makes no sense in the real one.These are well meaning people.I have heard them speak and I know they feel passionate.It's too bad that they're so ill informed and misguided.They have been the benefactors of years of funding for a failed abstinence philosophy and are fighting for what they see as their share of the drug war pie.They do so much harm and have no clue that they're doing it.The days when you could tell some scary stories and show some frightening movies are gone.If you want to make a difference you have to tell the truth now.Everything is at their finger tips.The drug war is a lost and flawed cause.Giving money to groups like these is like flushing money down the toilet.