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Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Rx for disaster

In the story about the RCMP helping U.S. authorities hunt down a 25-year-old who dared to establish an online marketplace beyond American control, I was curious to see U.S. Attorney-General Jeff Sessions blaming the dark web for the opioid crisis (Canadian Allegedly Behind Dark Web Marketplace Undone By Hotmail Address, July 21).

That's like blaming the liquor store for deaths caused by alcoholism or drunk driving. Perhaps instead of chasing dark web entrepreneurs to their deaths, the powers that be might consider ending the failed war on drugs, prosecuting opioid manufacturers, and providing universal pharmacare in order to undermine the black drug market and address the opioid epidemic.

People don't risk illegal markets for medicines they can safely and affordably access through mainstream channels. Until those steps are taken, it will remain apparent that governments are more interested in protecting the profits of Big Pharma than in protecting the lives of their citizens.

Chris Rapson, Toronto

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Once again it's the medium, not the message (Ontario Urges Ottawa To Prosecute Maker Of OxyContin, July 20).

By using pain specialists, Purdue was able to spread its message that OxyContin was not as addictive as other narcotics and should be prescribed more widely for "non-cancer pain." Purdue paid the specialists to lecture to family doctors, the major prescribers of pain meds, even to the extent of inviting the specialists to all-expenses-paid, speaker-training conferences.

Until governments, federal and provincial, and provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons prevent doctors who are receiving money from drug companies from lecturing to their fellow physicians, we will continue to repeat our devastating prescribing mistakes.

Paul Cary, MD, Cambridge, Ont.

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IT … and mirrors

The Phoenix payroll system is broken; it pays too little, too much or nothing to many federal employees (When The Public Service Is Outsourced, Canadians Suffer, July 17; IT's Complexity, letters, July 19). IBM has taken far too long to fix this; it needs to remedy it immediately. Exacerbating this was the too early layoff of government payroll staff, and perhaps excluding government IT staff from the project.

Debi Daviau, president of a union-like organization of federal workers, says doing the opposite would have given the government the system it wanted, and on budget. Unfortunately, that's highly unlikely.

Most IT projects have poor reputations for being over budget, late, not meeting the needs of the business, being unresponsive to change, and so on. Repeatedly, conclusions are drawn that the technology is to blame, or the IT staff, in-house or outsourced, doesn't know the business, or just about anything except the likely cause: The failure of IT projects is invariably down to the people responsible for the business.

It takes no imagination to see the ultimate users of Phoenix, multiple departments and divisions, each making requests to IBM, leaving it to the IT team to sort out conflicts, let alone errors, while the users impatiently await their new system.

In-house or outsourced, old technology or new, it doesn't matter. Successful projects are owned and managed by the people whose business is being affected, not IT, not committees or consultants.

The owner of Phoenix, the top dog in government responsible for payroll overall, has but to look in the mirror to find the major cause of that system's problems.

David Kister, Toronto

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Divided by Khadr

Re Scheer Mounts Attack As PM Focuses On NAFTA Talks (July 21): Unless the Conservatives are planning on starting their campaign for the 2019 Canadian federal election in the United States, denouncing the Canadian government's decision on the Khadr payment in the U.S. media is a shameful and ugly strategy, and so unwarranted.

Shahrzad Manoucherian, Thornhill, Ont.

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Re Khadr Is To Trudeau What The Census Was To Harper (July 20): The census as a valid comparison? C'mon: With the Omar Khadr settlement, we are talking about another Trudeau middle-finger salute, this time from Trudeau-fils, this time to our great American neighbours.

If we are a nation – Canada – strong and free since the Second World War and through the ominous, nerve-jarring Cold War, it really is only because of the muscular military might to the south, still holding the mightiest "stick" on the planet and standing on guard for us, too. You don't think the Russians have eyed wolfishly our feeble, summer-campish claims to northern sovereignty and vast Arctic oil reserves time and again?

Omar Khadr, by being in Afghanistan, allied with a murderous and terrorizing enemy, openly resisting NATO-forces, betrayed Canada, its armed forces and its people. What we have here is an issue of consequence, of urgency, of life and death – entirely unlike the census – that's going leave boot prints across the Liberals' electoral chances in 2019 for another majority. It will remain an issue that stinks, one that's gonna stick to this Teflon-Trudeau, and one that's going to be like the proverbial rotting political albatross tied around this particularly juvenile Trudeau neck.

The dirt has just begun to hit the fan on this extraordinarily poignant and politicized issue.

Rob Bredin, Orangeville, Ont.

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It's Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Loyal being the operative word. Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives can criticize Justin Trudeau and the Liberals to their Conservative hearts' content in Canada. I'm as unhappy as 70 per cent of my fellow Canadians about this settlement, and more power to the Tories for speaking out about it, as long as they do it here, at home. But not in the United States when we are trying to work our way though a trade deal with an unpredictable President looking for any fissure he can turn into a full-blown crack.

Badmouthing Canada in another country, especially when our nation's economy is at risk, is anything but loyal. Any thoughts I had of once again voting Conservative are rapidly receding.

Ellen S. Mason, Vancouver

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I'm a Canadian vet. Fighting and death are part of a soldier's life. Prosecuting child soldiers, however, is abominable and unforgivable – and that's what the U.S. did with Omar Kadhr. Our government has given Mr. Kadhr compensation for failing him against such tyranny. I recommend the Conservatives get over the fact that Canada actually has a working, honest, and fair judicial system. Further, attacking our government in the U.S. court of public opinion is a real low blow and an insult to any reasonable and fair-minded Canadian.

David Merritt, St. Albert, Alta.

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Hmm …

Re Sean Spicer Resigns As White House Press Secretary (July 21): Does this mean that there are people on Saturday Night Live who will also be out of work?

Douglas Cornish, Ottawa

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