LEGALIZE AND REGULATE MARIJUANA

Editor:

Not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need,
but adult recreational use should be regulated as well.

The reason for this is simple: leaving the distribution of popular
recreational drugs in the hands of organized crime puts children at great risk.

Unlike legitimate businesses, which sell liquor, illegal drug dealers do
not check IDs for age but they do push profitable, addictive drugs, such as
heroin, when given the chance. Politicians need to stop worrying about the
message drug-policy reform sends to children and start thinking about the
children themselves.

At present, Canadian tax dollars are being wasted on anti-drug strategies
which only make marijuana growing more profitable. The drug war's
distortion of basic supply-and-demand dynamics makes an easily grown weed
literally worth its weight in gold.

With money practically growing on trees, any British Columbia grow
operations destroyed will be replaced.

There are cost-effective alternatives.

In Europe, the Netherlands has successfully reduced overall drug use by
replacing marijuana prohibition with regulation. Separating the hard- and
soft-drug markets and establishing age controls for marijuana have proven
more effective than zero tolerance.

As the most popular illicit drug in Canada, marijuana provides the black
market contacts which introduce users to drugs such as heroin. This gateway
is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

Since marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no sense to
waste tax dollars on policies which finance organized crime groups, such as
Hells Angels, and facilitate the use of deadly hard drugs.

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.

Program officer The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation