MARIJUANA PROHIBITION PLAYED A BIG ROLE IN THE DEATH OF OUR MOUNTIES IN
MAYERTHORPE, BUT POT AND HASH ARE LESS HARMFUL THAN ALCOHOL

Prohibition was a failure, and it's a failure once again. Were it not for
the stupid prohibition of marijuana, four good RCMP officers would not have
died.

About 80 years ago, Alberta had a prohibition on alcohol. But it didn't
work. Albertans had moonshine stills and home brew everywhere. The majority
wanted to drink and did so illegally, until the government smartened up and
made liquor legal once again. Today, the Alberta and federal governments
make billions of dollars on liquor taxes. That's a far more intelligent
idea than prohibition.

The long-term effects of booze can be deadly. I saw an alcoholic man dying
because his kidneys had been destroyed by booze. Months before he died, he
was on a dialysis machine and he had the shakes so much, he could hardly
get a spoonful of soup to his mouth without spilling most of it. How many
marriages have been destroyed because of booze? How many people have died
and are still dying, because of booze? However, booze is legal, but pot is not.

Have you ever heard of anyone dying because of marijuana? You should have.
Four Mounties got killed on Thursday, March 3, when trying to prohibit a
psycho from growing the stuff near Rochfort Bridge.

The saddest part of it all is that they died in vain. For every marijuana
growing operation the police find, two more start up some place else. Pot
prohibition is a losing battle. Only a small percentage of marijuana
growing operations are being discovered and each year billions of dollars
are going to criminals instead of law-abiding people, as in the case of the
now unprohibited sales of liquor.

An experienced psychiatrist once told me that if he had his way, pot and
hash would be legal, but booze would not. He based his answer on the
problems he's had to deal with in trying to help out various kinds of
patients. We know that marijuana may now be used as a prescribed drug to
help ease pain and other medical problems. One man in the Gibbons area
suffered severe arthritic pain, but can now walk without crutches because
of the prescribed marijuana pills he's allowed to take. That sounds pretty
good to me.

The time has come to put an end to the prohibition of marijuana. I'm 64,
and I have smoked of what I speak.

Richard G. Nobert

Morinville