LEGAL POT A BURNING ISSUE

Dear editor,

No party will ever legalize marijuana in Parliament, it is too touchy
an issue. Pot legalization will come the same way medical marijuana,
legalized abortions and same sex marriage have, through the courts.

Where a regulated and taxed marijuana industry would inject $3
billion in annual tax revenue into our economy, the prohibition on
marijuana serves only to subsidize gangsters, lawyers, cops and jailers.

Prohibition costs the taxpayers a fortune, and not only does it fail
to reduce use or crime, it is actually wildly counterproductive.

Furthermore, recent science out of Germany shows how cannabinoids
stimulate the body's production of TIMP-1, which helps healthy cells
resist cancer invasion.

If fighting cancer isn't a good reason to legalize marijuana, then I
don't know what is.

There is simply no valid reason - medical, social, or legal - to
continue prohibiting marijuana. Anyone who is against the regulated
legalization of marijuana is either a criminal or an idiot, period.

If you accept that the government has any say at all as to what you
can and cannot put into your own body, then you must accept their
ownership. That means the government owns you, like a slave or a pet
or livestock, and that you have only the rights that they grant. If
you accept that, then maybe you deserve to have no rights at all.

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ontario