POT-SMOKING SHOULD BE PEACEFUL AND ORDERLY

The editorial "Nothing benign about grow-ops" (March 5) supports the worst
kind of nanny state, one in which government, assuming the punitive father
role, arbitrarily criminalizes some drugs for our own good.

But MPs are our employees, not our parents.

Their proper role is to enact laws and regulations under which adult
citizens can indulge in "vice" -- drinking, gambling, smoking tobacco or
marijuana, prostitution, etc. in a peaceful and orderly manner.

Driving impaired is a real crime; getting stoned at home is not.

Legalizing marijuana would not make money laundering easier. We no longer
have prohibition. How much money is laundered through government liquor
stores? Licensing and regulation are far better deterrents than police raids.

As for combating the health risk, subjecting citizens to the ravages of
fines or prison to save us from the alleged ravages of marijuana is like
taking someone's eye for breaking their own fingernail. By the TC's logic,
we should combat smoking by making tobacco illegal.

What a boon to organized crime that would be.

The newspaper believes in smaller government: How can it support the
inflation of police powers and police budgets to fight criminals whose
wealth is created by the very laws being enforced? It believes in cutting
government waste: How can it condone wasting hundreds of millions of tax
dollars annually supporting the profits of organized crime?

Whatever harm drug use causes, criminalization makes it worse.

Elizabeth Woods,

View Royal.