CONSERVATIVE BILL ON CANNABIS ABSURD

To the editor:

Re: 'Canadians back tougher sentences for drug dealers: Norlock', The
Independent, Feb 17, 2011.

Northumberland-Quinte West MP Rick Norlock is wrong. Canadians don't
support his government's efforts to get tough on drug traffickers by
making minimum sentences mandatory. Bill S-10 will only serve to
exasperate the existing problems inherent to cannabis
prohibition.

Cannabis prohibition was intended to circumvent the flow of cannabis
- -- it did not. Instead, cannabis, thanks to its prohibition, became a
tool for growing gang culture. With gang culture came violence,
increased crime, more cannabis (and drugs, in general) and increasing
levels of strategic sophistication aimed at thwarting
enforcement.

Cannabis is front and centre in a prohibition scheme that continues to
provide an environment conducive for the growing of gang culture.
Science validates this (see The Vienna Declaration
http://www.viennadeclaration.com/ and The International Centre for
Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) http://www.icsdp.org/

The idea that Bill S-10 will safeguard Canadians and strike a blow at
organized crime by going after street dealers and low-level cannabis
producers is absurd; as such, it should be viewed as suspicious.

Wayne P. Phillips,

Communications Director,

Educators for Sensible Drug Policy,

Hamilton