WAGING WAR ON A BENIGN PLANT

The arrest of two alleged member of the Redd Alert street gang
garnered Mounties more than two miscreant brothers.

The police seized an impressive array of weapons - that skull and
bones scythe in particular had many tongues wagging - and, of course,
the ubiquitous cache of illegal drugs, in this case cocaine.

On the day Kamloops Mounties were displaying their catch, they also
confirmed that the city's third murder victim of the year -
36-year-old Gary Cavanagh, who was shot to death in a North Shore
travel trailer - has connections to drugs.

The cops weren't saying drug-dealing or a debt related to drugs led
to Cavanagh's execution, per se; only that drugs were involved.

You can take from that what you will, and the link is more than obvious.

Shortly after we ran the update on the Cavanagh murder, noting the
confirmation that his untimely demise is somehow connected to drugs
(gasp!), the anti-prohibitionists began sending e-mails.

From Santa Cruz, Calif. and Washington, D.C. came the missives,
chiding us for daring to quote the cops on linking drugs and the murder.

If Cavanagh's death was indeed drug-related, said these advocates of
drug legalization, it was the prohibition of drugs, not drugs
themselves, that is to blame.

An old argument, to be sure, but one worthy of debate in light of the
election in January of a federal government in Ottawa that appears
ready to embrace the failed Reagan-era war on drugs in the U.S. that
accomplishes nothing more than making the sale of such illicit
narcotics all the more lucrative for those doing the dealing.

The question should be cleaved to deal with marijuana and all other
so-called hard drugs.

Should we legalize marijuana?

Absolutely.

Should we legalize cocaine, crystal meth and heroin?

That's a much tougher question.

Regarding pot, there are enough studies - government and otherwise,
from the Senate on down - that have called for decriminalization of
the herb at the very least.

It is safe to say that every person in Kamloops knows at least one
other person who has smoked a joint or does so regularly.

Call it six degrees of inhalation.

I know countless people who treat marijuana as our father's
generation treated alcohol - as a social indulgence, one to be shared
at a party or consumed after a hard day at work.

And not one of the dozens of people I know who enjoy using marijuana
is anywhere near the slippery slope to the world of crack, as
laughably claimed by prohibitionists who parrot the lie that pot is a
dangerous gateway drug.

The problem lies in the current laws. When the Conservatives decided
to ditch the Liberals' progressive plan to decriminalize pot, they
reinforced the warped reality that makes criminals of upstanding
citizens who enjoy using marijuana.

Why that is escapes me, and it is near-impossible for Tory MPs or
other prohibitionists to logically explain why vast sums of money
continue to be spent outlawing pot when legalization would benefit
society in at least two areas.

One, it would put a serious dent in the price of marijuana, thereby
smashing the profit motive for dealers. If it is legalized, regulated
and taxed like alcohol, the black market is taken out of the picture,
leaving police and courts to deal with serious scourges like crack
and crystal meth.

Two, legalization would make it much more difficult for minors to get
their hands on a bag of weed.

Does it not strike our lawmakers as absurd that any teenager in
Canada can get a weekend's worth of illegal pot at the snap of a
finger, yet faces a much more difficult task securing a case of legal beer?

The former can be bought in a school hallway; the latter requires an
adult to walk into a government-approved store and make a proxy purchase.

Legalizing marijuana will cut out organized crime from that crop, a
crop from which criminals have been profiting since pot was first
banned in the 1923 Opium and Drug Act.

On the other hand, a certain way to ensure organized crime remains in
business is to follow the futility espoused by our current
government, which is to emulate the long-failed U.S. "war on drugs"
approach and continue to foolishly apply it to the benign plant.