SMELL OF GANGA IN OUR BUS SHELTERS

Re: Pot's Critics Run Out Of Excuses, Chris Selley; Frank Talk From The
Front Lines, Christie Blatchford, June 14.

In arguing that maintaining the prohibition against pot is "not very
conservative at all," Chris Selley reveals that he's probably more
than just a bystander in this debate. The logic is admittedly a little
challenging, but conservatives are called such because they conserve
. things like drug prohibitions. Liberals change stuff. So
maintaining prohibition is almost the definition of
conservatism.

Conservatives are also resisting the pressure to fully legalize
prostitution. Dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford says the business isn't
inherently violent and that the violence prostitutes do endure "seldom
comes from clients (but) from the men in their lives," including their
pimps. If the women found in shallow graves could talk, I'm sure they
would invariably inform her that regardless of who did the deed, pimp
or john, their deaths were very much trade-related.

According to UBC law professor Benjamin Perrin, every country that has
legalized prostitution has witnessed an increase in both legal and
illegal prostitution and violence committed against the practitioners
thereof. The lesson to be drawn from this is that if you want to see
more people doing something, legalize it.

And my message for Chris and Christie is simple: If you like inhaling
secondhand ganga at the bus stop and you want to find more bodies in
more shallow graves, keep writing as you do. If you don't want these
outcomes, you both need to wake up and smell the conservative cappuccino.

Jeff Willerton

Airdrie, Alta.