DRUG-LEGALIZATION ADVOCATE SAYS SLAYINGS CLOUDING DEBATE ON Issue

Former Corrections Officer Speaks At Mount Allison Thursday

A former corrections officer, who will advocate the legalization of drugs
when she speaks at Mount Allison University Thursday night, says last
week's slayings of four RCMP officers in northern Alberta is clouding the
debate over the issue.

"It's sad that (federal Public Safety Minister) Anne McLellan and the RCMP
are using this tragedy to push for tougher laws. We think that's absolutely
wrong," says Alison Myrden, who will speak on behalf of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition. The group, made up of current and former law
professionals, believes the war on drugs has only increased society's problems.

Ms. Myrden, who has a medical marijuana exemption for multiple sclerosis
and tic douloureux - which causes excruciating facial pains - wants all
drugs legalized. Legalization and government regulation, she contends, are
the best ways to address drug use and control who gets them.

The Burlington, Ontario woman says the federal public safety minister and
others who are calling for a drug crackdown in the aftermath of last
Thursday's shootings in Mayerthorpe. Alta., are just caught up in the hysteria.

Calls for tougher drug sentencing came after reports emerged that Jim
Roszko, the man who killed the four Mounties and later turned his gun on
himself, had marijuana plants growing on his farm. Investigators also found
evidence of a chop-shop in the garage.

Ms. Myrden notes the police were on the farm investigating the stolen
automobile parts.

While the killings have had some people pointing to drugs as a source of
violence, Ms. Myrden believes legalizing the substances will actually
eliminate the violence associated with the illegal drug trade.

"I'm actually going to be talking about how prohibition fuels violence and
that we can end violence by legalizing things like marijuana."

As a corrections officer, she was struck by the number of young people she
was meeting who had been jailed for marijuana.

"It made me feel like a hypocrite because I was going home and smoking
every day after work," said Ms. Myrden, who had been prescribed cannabis
for pain relief after doctor prescribed cocaine and heroin therapy proved
to be insufficient.

You shouldn't fine anybody or jail anybody for such a harmless, innocuous
plant. Tobacco and alcohol are far worse that marijuana and nobody is
getting down on tobacco and alcohol."

Just as bootleggers' empires crumbled when prohibition ended in the 1930s,
so the illegal drug trade will once legalized, Ms. Myrden says.

"(Gangster) Al Capone was running the underground market with alcohol and
all of a sudden violence was everywhere. And next thing you know, as soon
as they regulated it and put it in the mainstream market and taxed it, all
of a sudden black market was no longer involved and (people like) Al Capone
went out of business."

Legalization, regulation and taxation will also help keep drugs out of the
hands of children, she says.

She plans to show how legalization in other countries has actually led to
decreased drug use.

"In the Netherlands, once they allowed them to do thing like inject heroin
safely, the number of people using is dropped drastically and steadily."

It's not a matter that people will choose to do drugs once they are
legalized, she says. "They are already choosing to do them."

Once it's legal, they have access to safer drugs than that they buy on the
black market.

"What we have to do is make those people safe. I don't want them to be
exposed to bad drugs or overdose, or hiding it, shooting up by themselves
and overdosing and dying that way."

And once it's legal, regulated and taxed, interest in the drugs seems to
decline, she says.

"It's the devil you know and it's no fun anymore."

Ms. Myrden speaks at Mount Allison University's Crabtree Auditorium at 7
p.m. Thursday.