A FLAWED FEDERAL APPROACH TO MARIJUANA

If you were wondering just how out of touch with the electorate and
reality Mr. Harper and the Conservatives are just look at what they
plan to do with the drug laws: less harm reduction and harsher
sentences for marijuana users.

It looks like half the people I know will be in jail and not providing
for their families.

I don't even smoke it myself and I know that many.

Mr. Harper and his band of elitists' crackdown on marijuana users is,
according to justice minister Rob Nicholson, despite being unable to
supply evidence that similar policies in other countries reduced drug
crimes.

There it is the Conservative answer to reducing the crime rate in
Canada.

I wonder why no one thought of that before, but Nicholson assured us
that "I can tell you there is support for this bill from many ordinary
Canadians."

Nicholson must be talking about the small group of rednecks that voted
for the Conservatives in the last election because in B.C., 65 per
cent of the population want to legalize marijuana and the majority do
not want reductions in harm reduction.

William F. Buckley Jr. said, "Even if one takes every reefer madness
allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition
has done far more harm to people than marijuana ever could." We can
only hope there is a federal regime change in our very near future.

Wayne Clark,
Maple Ridge