MAKING A MONOPOLY

Re: "Mandatory jail for drug crimes nears passage; Tougher sentences
have flooded U. S.
prisons as trafficking continues unabated," The Journal, June 4.

Aside from pandering to the Tories' myopic, visceral, misinformed, and
punishment-happy voter base, Bill C-15 was designed specifically to
increase crime.

These mandatory sentences will scare off the mom-'n'-pop pot growers,
who present direct market competition to the gangsters. With the
little guys out of the game, the big guys will get more business and
more profit. This will lead to more violence, which the police and
government will use as justification for even more draconian laws and
suppression of our civil rights.

The whole thing is a scam designed to make it necessary to hire more
cops, build more jails, and spend more taxpayers' dollars on a policy
which further subsidizes organized crime. The media-addled public is
being duped once again.

Russell Barth, federally licensed medical marijuana user, Ottawa