CANADA'S CRACKDOWN ON DRUGS WILL BRING RISE IN DRUG CRIME

To the Editor,

Re: 'Tough' drug bill politicized, May 21.

One could wonder if Bill C-15 was designed specifically to increase
crime.

By offering mandatory minimum sentences for growing even one plant,
the Tories scare off the mom and pop growers who present direct market
competition to the gang growers who use public land, steal power and
wreck homes.

With the small-timers scared off, the gangs will have more demand to
fill, and that means more profit. More profit means more violent
competition and more associated crime.

The government will then use that inevitable rise in crime as
justification to implement even more draconian laws, increase police
powers and budgets, build more jails, and further suppress our civil
rights and liberties.

All to protect us from something that never would have happened
without the folly of prohibition.

Anyone who thinks the drug war is about safety is dreaming -- it is
all about control. The war on certain drugs was never meant to be won,
it was meant to be continuous.

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ont.