LEGALIZATION WOULD ELIMINATE INDOOR GROW OPS

To open I would like to state that I am not now, nor ever have been, a
user of marijuana. While I support its legalization I hope I never
feel the need to use it. I would hope that my son does not choose to
use it for non-medical purposes. I would hope, however, that if anyone
in my family felt it was medically beneficial to use marijuana that
there is a safe and legal way to do so.

John Noakes outlines the reasons why indoor marijuana growing is not
desired. I agree with him that growing marijuana indoors is not
desirable. I would add that large-scale indoor grow operation of any
plant is not desirable, with the obvious exception of greenhouse growing.

The motivation of those operating an indoor grow operation is
precisely because of prohibition. They are trying to hide it. From out
of the '50s and '60s cannabis gained the moniker "weed." That is
because cannabis grows like a weed. It grows so well in most Canadian
climates that farmers have used it to crowd out other weeds in their fields.

In Kamloops you probably need to irrigate cannabis to get it to grow
well. Legalization would completely eliminate the need or motivation
to grow the stuff indoors. It is orders of magnitude cheaper to grow
it in the open air. You don't need grow lights and the accompanying
electricity theft. Associated indoor mold issues... gone.

This leads to a problem when trying to regulate it. The reason why it
is feasible to regulate alcohol and tobacco is because it's a bit
tricky to produce/grow. It's not worth putting up with the hassle when
the price in the store is so reasonable. Cannabis is too easy to grow
so it can't be sold cheaply enough in stores to keep people from
growing it themselves. Drug-running gangs would lose all interest.

Legalizing marijuana is not going to eliminate gangs, however. There
are plenty of other illicit activities for gangs to get themselves
dirty with after you eliminate the marijuana trade.

Sadly, by prohibiting cannabis to go after the narcotic marijuana we,
as a society, have severely curtailed the growing of very useful hemp.
Prior to marijuana's prohibition in the 1930s hemp fibers were being
used to produce superior rope and fabric. One has to wonder how much
oil could have been saved over the years by not producing oil-derived
synthetic fibers.

LENARD SEGNITZ

Kamloops