BREAKING LAWS

Re: Breaking laws by Ed Hicks (Dec. 14).

Ed Hicks wrote: "If people choose to break the law, then they ought to
be aware and willing to take the consequences for their actions." Tell
that to Rosa Parks, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.

We are obligated, as citizens of a democracy, to resist and break laws
that are unjust. Laws that prohibit violence, murder, and thievery,
are sensible and just laws.

Laws that kept people of colour and women from having equal rights
were unjust laws. They were wrong, they were resisted, and they were
changed.

A law that prohibits people from producing or using a plant -- that
has never killed anyone and has dozens of medical benefits -- is not
only unjust, it is completely absurd.

It is also absurd to assume that just because something is illegal, it must
have become illegal for some good reason. Check your
history books, Mr. Hicks: marijuana prohibition was started with lies and
racism.

There is no valid reason to keep marijuana use or production as a
criminal offence, unless it is to pander to the backwards-thinking
bigots who think that we need to replace our parents with a government.

Russell Barth

Ottawa