STIRRING THE POT

Editor:

Re: 'Spinning Wheels' on grow ops, TIMES, July 13

The Conservative government has no interest in legalizing marijuana
because prohibition makes crime, and crime necessitates cops. The
whole thing is a scam designed to accustom the public to an ongoing
and ever-increasing police presence in their daily lives. It has
nothing at all to do with public safety, it is all about control.

"King said marijuana is so highly used it's hard to regulate."
Nonsense. This is cut-and-paste legislation. A twelve-year-old could
figure it out.

"King said the amount of money being spent on criminalization of
marijuana is "huge"." Over $1 billion every year, on cops, courts, and
cages, actually. Also, it costs all of us untold billions every year
in as tens of thousands of Canadians become under-employ-able because
of a pot bust. Also, it is costing us $3 billion annually in potential
tax-revenue. Legalizing pot would literally make Canada $4-5 billion
wealthier.

"I think that what we're doing is not successful," she said. "It
doesn't make any sense to me."

But prohibition isn't about reducing crime or drug use. It never was.
The whole thing is designed to give police leverage to harass the
poor, the young, people of colour, and people with non-regulation
hairstyles. It is designed to keep cops busy, lawyers rich, politicos
blathering, and jails full. It looks pretty successful to me.

Kamp said marijuana is "largely decriminalized now in practice for
small amounts." Nonsense. Every year police bust tens of thousands of
people for simple possession, and the numbers go up by several
thousand every year. Look at the court dockets: It is a cash cow. If
cops weren't so busy busting pot people, they might have to do hard
things, like go look for missing women and children and catch street
racers.

"I think it's safe to say our government doesn't have any interest in
legalization and little interest in decriminalization," he said. "We
don't have an interest in the wide opening up of access to marijuana."

Of course not. Legalizing marijuana would not only reduce crime and
generate tax revenue, it would restore Canadian's sense of personal
freedom - something the Harper government seems keen to beat out of
us.

"Kamp said there are no clinical studies proving the effectiveness of
medicinal marijuana, which is why it can't be sold in a drug store."
Colossal balderdash. There have been over 20,000 studies showing the
medical effectiveness and safety of cannabis, which is exactly why it
isn't sold in a drug store: it would put dozens of other
less-effective and far-more-toxic medicines right out of business.

"He pointed out people can buy dried marijuana from Health Canada,
grow it themselves if they have permission from Health Canada or
designate someone to grow it for them."

This system - which has been ruled unconstitutional at least four
times, and which has been widely criticized as arbitrary,
dysfunctional, and mean-spirited - is nowhere near adequate! To even
mention it is an insult. Notice how the Harperistas have a squillion
dollars for jails and cops and G20 meetings and jets - but can't even
increase the staff over at one Health Canada office by 50 per cent.

"What's produced by the federal government isn't appropriate for
everybody, in fact very few." Let's be frank: It is categorically the
worst pot in Canada. Even the "street" crap is better. A teenager
could grow better pot in a shed. This is deliberate. The government
has deliberately tied the hands of the producer, forcing them to not
only grow ground up, chemical-laden mulch-weed but also to sing its
praises in the press. It is an epic boondoggle. Also, the government
pot would have to go about five steps up the ladder to get to "lousy".

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ont.