DRUG USE BEING AIDED BY COUNCIL

A growing, troubling trend is sweeping through our historically
law-abiding city. Over the last 10 years or so, a rash of
marijuana-friendly stores have opened in Edmonton as well as typical
"convenience stores," expanding their product lines to include a wide
assortment of drug paraphernalia, thanks in large part to the
tax-hungry extended hands of our city council and peripheral
lawmakers. When I was growing up, it wasn't uncommon for my mother to
send me to the store at five or six years old to get milk or bread.

Now I fear for anyone wanting to send their children to the store
because nowadays, you'd have to walk past stores proudly advertising
the largest selection of "candy blunts" in the city.

"Daddy, what's a blunt?," to which the somewhat perplexed father
typically answers, "It's something bad son."

"Well Daddy, if it's bad, why do these people sell them?" and the
answer should be, "Well, son, because city council allows these
stores to open because they want the tax dollars and the only reason
they don't tax the marijuana, crack, crystal meth or any other
smokable drugs that people put in these pipes, or blunts, is that
they can't just yet but they are working on it."

When will the bleeding hearts and politically correct "leaders" of
our once proud city stop trying to turn us into Little Amsterdam and
do the right thing for our children and the generations to come?

So don't blame the kids, although they will suffer with the various
addictions that are already stressing our dollar-strapped
rehabilitation facilities; blame the ones who are in charge of
ensuring we have a safe city to live in.

Blame the ones we have elected. Blame the ones whose salaries we pay.

Blame the ones we trust to know better.

Louis Albert Sequeira, Edmonton