MEXICO LARGEST SUPPLIER OF MARIJUANA TO THE U.S., NOT CANADA

While Detective Constable Ernie Garbutt may be correct that money
drives the illegal drug trade, his presentation contained two major
inaccuracies that undermine his credibility.

Firstly, Canada is in no way the largest supplier of marijuana to the
United States. A few minutes of research on the RCMP or DEA websites
clearly shows Mexico's contribution dwarfs Canada's. The DEA's 2008
Drug Threat Assessment is particularly clear that Canada's exports to
the US have remained more or less constant since 2001.

Secondly, Canadian marijuana is not traded "pound for pound" for
cocaine. The RCMP have clearly denied this; in 2006, Paul Nadeau,
then RCMP National Drug Enforcement Director said "Personally, I have
never heard of one instance where we've been able to corroborate
that. It doesn't compute, frankly; it's pretty clear that cocaine is
still much more valuable than marijuana." Even the dumbest criminal
wouldn't trade $12,000 of cocaine for $3000 worth of marijuana.

While there may indeed be dangers of growing marijuana indoors, Det.
Garbutt has squandered this opportunity to provide honest education
to the public.

Furthermore, that 60 per cent of the Kawartha Combined Forces Drug
Unit is busy dealing with marijuana shows a serious resource
allocation problem. There are far larger problems the police could be
working on than ripping plants out of the ground.

Cedric Silvester

Springbrook Dr. Peterborough