BIG MARIJUANA BUST ALL SMOKE, NO FIRE

Regarding the article, London raid nets $2-million pot cache (Sept. 25).

The police aren't saying, so we don't know how they got wind of the cache.
We can be sure of one thing though, it wasn't through their new copper
chopper. If it was, they would be crowing loudly. The criteria for
regulating "recreational" substances should be a simple one: How easy is it
to walk away from?

Can you walk away from tobacco? Can you walk away from alcohol? How about
crack cocaine, or heroin?

The only recreational substance you can easily walk away from, or smoke
without inhaling, is marijuana. Legalization of this substance would cut
drastically into the profit margins of these other cartels.

This major pot bust, can therefore be equated with the same sensationalism
as Elliot Ness knocking off a couple of bathtubs of gin back in 1920s
Chicago. It only created a stir, but accomplished nothing.

Do you actually think this money will be spent on milk and cookies? With the
pot destroyed, the $2 million will be earmarked for things such as
cigarettes, booze, crack or heroin.

In the time it took police to incinerate the marijuana cache, some crackhead
left a trail of crime and destruction on their way to a body bag. Some
heroin addict gave an accomplice AIDS or hepatitis from a dirty needle.

Some teenager took his first puff of tobacco. Some drunk driver maimed or
killed a loved one . . . maybe yours. Some marijuana smoker, took a break,
put on some jazz, and found a few moments of peacefulness from a mad,
profit-oriented, violent and often cruel world. But the law is the law,
isn't it?

John Macys, London