LAWS CAUSE PROBLEMS NOT GROW-OPS

To the editor:

I am responding to the story headlined, Not in our backyard, in the
May 5 edition of the Free Press.

This article strikes me as nothing less than a stinging indictment of
our current educational system.

Where is the critical thinking here?

The police complain about marijuana grow-ops and their "excessive
amounts of garbage and hazardous materials left behind by the
operators, including electrical ballasts potentially containing
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)" without telling us (or perhaps they
don't themselves realize) it is the law banning the plant that has
caused these problems.

If marijuana were a legal crop, we would run into no more problems
with marijuana grow operations than we currently do with tomato grow
operations.

The law making marijuana illegal is a bad law because not only does it
fail spectacularly at reducing usage, but it actually causes more harm
and havoc than if the law had never been passed.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Alan Randell

Victoria