AGAINST NEW CRIME BILL

To the editor:

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper's has several former
police officers in it, including our MP Rick Norlock.

When these former police officers where arresting people, they always
had to go by the evidence before them to build a case. It makes one
wonder what happened to that common sense once they were elected.

As Mr. Harper's government gets closer to bringing in its large crime
bill, which includes warrantless searches of your Internet use, where
is the evidence that these new mandatory minimum laws will be effective?

It's a shame people who once required evidence no longer use it to
form our country's first ever mandatory minimum cannabis laws. If our
government did its research, they would see the evidence from the
United States is enough to stop anyone from implementing this useless
sentencing.

After 30 years of mandatory minimum cannabis laws, the U.S. is now the
country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. The result,
California and other states are now releasing non-violent cannabis
users as their jail system is over burdened. This January, California
actually decriminalized cannabis because mandatory minimum laws are
ineffective and extremely costly.

What about the children? Evidence from places such as Holland and
Portugal where cannabis is decriminalized or a low priority has showed
a different approach is being effective. According to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Service, the result of the U.S. laws is
that their youth rate of cannabis is 37 per cent while in countries
like the Netherlands the rate is at 17 per cent.

While we're told decriminalization will increase cannabis use the
evidence says otherwise. It makes one wonder why these former police
officers don't look at the real evidence.

In 1925, with no evidence provided to Canadians, cannabis became
illegal. Now 86 years later the same thing is happening with these
mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

Al Graham

Campbellford