DRUGS ARE A HEALTH ISSUE

Editor, The News:

Re: Party's not over (News views, Oct. 6).

First, I would like to congratulate the author of this excellent
opinion. Thank-you, kudos to you, as I couldn't agree more.

An Angus-Reid poll last year determined that 63 per cent of Canadians
say that drugs are a health issue, not a judicial one.

The message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is quite
clear: more drug war is exactly what most Canadians don't want; more
people jailed, more prisons to build, more judges and Crown lawyers to
hire, more court houses to build, more cops to hire while our
country's crime levels are at their lowest levels in years.

If our feds do this, it will give Canada the same prison-state
reputation as the U.S.

All of this, of course, would translate with more taxes to pay in a
country where its citizens are already overtaxed.

Marc Paquette,

Hawkesbury, Ont.