NO REALLY, DECRIMINALIZE

The recent deaths of Ryerson community members William Kim and
Alexander Christoff should be a wake-up call to those who don't see
the sense in relaxing Canada's drug laws.

There is some conjecture here, since details surrounding both deaths
have yet to emerge in full, but it's safe to say that both young men
were liked and respected by their peers here at Ryerson.

Both were good people.

Both also, it seems, sold drugs.

As long as young people and students continue to want drugs,
especially relatively benign ones like marijuana there will be someone
with an entrepreneurial bent willing to make a few bucks in the trade.

What these deaths show us, and what many of us already know, is that
the people who step in to fill this void are not always the thugs and
low-lifes portrayed in popular culture. They're often our friends, and
they're often good people who might actually be said to deform a
valuable service by keeping the average pot-toking second-year arts
student at a remove from the more-overtly criminal world that deals
with larger quantities of contraband.

As long as this underground economy persists, however, the middlemen,
the Christoffs and Kims of the world, remain in a dangerously
precarious contact with that darker, criminal world.

Let's make some changes to the system, and make things safer. For
everyone.