Legalization puts criminals out of work

Spike Wormington

Your newspaper has recently published a number of insightful articles on
the merits of legalizing the responsible use of marijuana. I commend you
for your efforts. However, you failed to show all points of view in your
debate.

I'm talking about the criminal point of view.

What happens to these criminals if marijuana becomes a legal product! What
are they going to do for a living ? Enter into an executive training
program with Merck/Frost? If marijuana can be purchased at a store just
like wine, beer and liquor, how will our local streetcorner drug dealers
pay their rent? They will all be out of business. And everyone today knows
that we're losing enough businesses as it is.

And it doesn't just stop there with drug dealers. What about explosives
suppliers for bike gangs, or illegal gun dealers, or money launderers. Who
is looking out for them ?

And what happens if all that police effort, that was previously directed
towards catching marijuana smokers, were now to be directed towards
catching violent and predatory criminals ? Those criminals too would be out
of business. Not to mention the chaos that will be created with all those
empty court rooms and extra jail space.

And don't get me started about all the problems that would arise if we
taxed the legal sale of marijuana.

With billions of dollars of tax revenue, (which currently goes into the
pockets of organized crime, and all their associates ) we would have no
need for the Ontario Hospital Restructuring Commission and the
commissioners. And we all know that those are goodpaying jobs !

The evidence is overwhelming. The legalization of marijuana will increase
unemployment in Canada.

Can we afford to lose one more job ? I don't think so.

Spike Wormington, Ottawa