HAS THE TIME COME TO END POT PROHIBITION?

Re: Ex-mayors call for end to pot prohibition, Nov. 24

While it's hopeful that four former mayors have made crystal clear
the urgency and necessity of ending prohibition to restore justice,
the safety of our streets, and our individual freedom to choose, it
remains disturbing that virtually no politician currently in elected
office at any level advocates this.

It is a political irony that these former mayors, former presidents
of Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, former governors, hundreds of other
previously elected and now former officials throughout the world,
along with hundreds of former police officers, all declare the war on
drugs a counterproductive failure, a gift to organized crime and a
threat to the stability of several nations, but none of them acted on
this while in the political authority of their elected or appointed office.

There is an unfathomable disconnect between holding political office
and doing the right thing when it comes to ending prohibition.

Even with majorities in the U. S. and Canada favouring the
legalization of marijuana, no serious action occurs in the
parliaments, statehouses, legislatures and congresses of Canada,
Mexico or the United States to further this desire.

Nor is any rational explanation for this dereliction of democratic
will and common sense offered by the authorities in office. Why?

Marc Emery

U. S. federal prison, Yazoo City, Miss.