POT PROHIBITION GIVES GANGS POWER AND MONEY

Editor:

Recent events, such as the gang murder in Kelowna and ongoing
incidents in biker turf wars in Quebec and Ontario can only be
expected to increase as gangsters increase their wealth and use it to
corrupt officials to further extend the tentacles of their criminal
enterprises.

It should come as a surprise to nobody that myriad other drugs
finding their way into society via criminal organizations has at its
roots the prohibition of cannabis.

Poorly educated people from rural areas lacking in wealth and
employment become willing growers of this fast-growing and disease-free plant.

They also become a secret asset to and employer of impoverished
communities, where easy money is a significant incitement.

Criminal organizations seldom pay for their crop with straight money.

That would be bad business.

No, they pay in the form of money and other drugs or weapons (take it
or leave it) because the world in which the marijuana grower is
forced to work has no law enforcement for obvious reasons, and
growers are unlikely candidates to sue for unethical business practices.

In this way, cocaine and heroine finds their way into your little community.

In this way, crystal meth and various other hard drugs find their way
into your community.

The average Joe who would have initially been happy with a few tokes
as a high is instead presented with a smorgasbord of options, thanks
to prohibition, complete with unscrupulous dealers who encourage the
use of their much more profitable and addictive drugs, thereby
creating the return customers who will stop at nothing to obtain the
money needed to feed the addiction that hard drugs create.

I'm most certainly not advocating the legalization of all drugs,
though I believe the money wasted on control would be better spent on
education.

The biggest stop to the madness, this War on Drugs and all that is
devastating our communities and entire countries, such as Mexico, begins here.

Separate the essentially harmless drug from the devastating variety.

To lump them all into one bag is a sad attempt at inciting fear in
the masses and creates distrust in our youth.

Marijuana is not a narcotic and never has been, except politically --
yet another sorry example of politics trumping science.

Keep in mind, also, that cannabis is easily and readily obtainable
now (it continues to be a plant), regardless of its legal status.

The fact it may not exist in your personal world does not diminish this fact.

Sever the conduit organized crime depends upon to infiltrate their
hard drugs into every community where prohibition exists -- and you
sever the head of the beast.

Pat Leibel

Kamloops