POTENT POT ACTUALLY BETTER ALTERNATIVE

Guy Bennett wants to have his cake and eat it too. In his July 19-25 reefer
madness rant ("We're getting too lenient over potent pot", Flipside) he
claims marijuana "wrecks your lungs" and rails against potent pot. Potent
pot is actually a healthy alternative to weak pot. Both will yield the
desired result, only the potent pot requires significantly less smoke
inhalation. As for the tired "protecting the children" argument, the
thriving black market has no controls for age, making it easier for
teenagers to buy illegal drugs than beer.

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 that
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 B.C. grow
operations destroyed will be replaced.

There are cost-effective alternatives to the failed drug war. 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 has proven more
effective than zero tolerance.

As the most popular illicit drug in Canada, marijuana provides the black
market contacts that introduce users to drugs like heroin. This "gateway"
is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy. Given that marijuana
is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no sense to waste tax
dollars on policies that finance organized crime groups like the Hells
Angels and facilitate the use of deadly hard drugs.

More recent figures can be found at:
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm. Annual Causes of Death in the
U.S.: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

Robert Sharpe,
The Lindesmith Center,
Drug Policy Foundation,
Washington, DC