BATTLE AGAINST DRUGS A POLICE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN

Re: Battle against drugs long and hard, police say (Sept. 3)

This propaganda on the part of Canadian police organizations is
getting increasingly sickening and disconcerting.

"It's a totally different drug in terms of the THC content." Actually,
potent pot is safer. THC is a therapeutic agent with dozens of proven
medical applications and no known dangers. Also, the user needs less
to get the desired effect, so they smoke less. But it seems that this
"new" pot has a profound effect on police officers' ability to tell
the truth.

But all this effort is worse than misguided; it is, in fact
outrageously counterproductive.

Think about that: if the police busted twice as many grows this year
as last year, they would still only get about 20 per cent of them. One
fifth! Probably less.

And every time they bust one grow -- indoor, outdoor, small or big --
all they do is make the ones they don't catch that much more valuable.
Not only is the illegality of pot the very thing that makes growing it
so lucrative, the police are subsidizing the entire industry by
busting a minority of them.

The cops know this too. They know perfectly well that they are
subsidizing criminals because the evidence to support what I say is
widely available and simple enough for even the dullest 10-year-old to
understand. It leads me to wonder just which side of the law they are
really on.

They like to tell the public that this is somehow interfering with
organized crime or preventing pot from reaching your kids, but
informed people know better. Every year the cops bust more and more
people, and every year pot becomes more widely available.

All over a medicinal plant that recent science suggests actually
fights cancer: www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20071226/pot-slows-cancer-in-test-tube
www.salem-news.com/articles/july132009/cbd_2_sc_7-13-09.php

Is this the Canada you want to live in? A country where cops help
gangsters and deprive people of valuable medicine? Because that is the
Canada you live in right now.

Russell Barth

Federally Licensed Medical Marijuana User

Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis (PAIDOC)