ARE YOU RUNNING OUT OF MARIJUANA?

ON JUNE 9, responding to a letter by Clifford A. Schaffer which claimed
that large drug seizures have no effect on availability, you replied
"Twenty tons? No effect? Come on." Are you running out of marijuana or any
other drug in Canada? I hadn't heard. We've got lots of everything down
here in the States and have had for the entire 80 years of the "War on
Drugs."

The only thing I can point to as an absolute consequence of what some claim
to be over $1 trillion wasted on the drug war is that any child with a $10
bill can buy any drug of choice anywhere in either country.

It seems to me we could have found a better way to spend our hard-earned
dollars. Improved drug education? Computers in the schools? Better health
care? All seem like wiser choices than throwing the money away on a totally
ineffective drug interdiction program.

Mark Greer Porterville, Calif.

(The pot runneth over.)

DRUG TRAFFICKING makes up 8% of global trade and 20 tonnes of marijuana is
a drop in the ocean. Wake up and smell your coffee.

Lachlan Window

(We were talking about Calgary, not the world.)

I'VE BEEN following your recent letters from readers like Mark Chenier,
Lynn Harichy and others with some interest. I'm glad to read you believe
marijuana should be legalized for medicinal use. I believe Kirk Nechamkin
deserves an answer to his question, "Why not 'literally decriminalize' it?"
to which you replied the reasons were too numerous to list.

There certainly must be one or two important reasons you would have had the
space to list. After all, isn't it important to inform your readers of
these reasons? I have always been genuinely curious as to why marijuana is
illegal. I've never heard or read any reasons which are not blatantly
spurious, circular or intellectually dishonest or which are not
contradicted by logic or my own experience. Any cursory research into the
origins of laws against marijuana reveal only the racist and puritanical
hysteria of a bygone era.

Larry Stevens

(Dope is for dopes, Larry.)

CAN YOU imagine the tax revenue the government would collect if it were to
legalize pot even for medicinal purposes? ("Reefer sadness," June 18.) I
can see it now, walking down a Calgary street and finding a store called
"Rocky Mountain High."

Bruce Sinclair

(A pot of gold.)


Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)