GROWERS MOST PLEASED WITH RECENT GROW-OP BUST

Growers that aren't caught get more valuable. Re:: "Cops close massive
grow-op", Medicine Hat News, Sept. 26

Guess who is most pleased about this eradication policy. The 90 to 95
per cent of growers who will never be caught. This colossal waste of
time and money is not only failing to fix things, it is, in fact,
outrageously counterproductive.

Think about it.

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, and
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 actually subsidizing the entire industry
by busting only a minority of them.

The cops know they are subsidizing criminals because the evidence to
support what I say is widely available. They do it deliberately to
secure their jobs.

And don't tell me the cops don't make the laws. The police have been
lobbying government for decades to keep the war on certain plants
going. They lobby constantly, with our tax dollars no less, and have
way too much influence over our governments, at all levels.

They also like to tell the public 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 organized criminals grow stronger and pot
becomes more widely available. All this 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

Neapean, Ont.

(The writer is a federally licensed medical marijuana user and member
of Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis -
www.paidoc.org)