THE REAL IMPACT OF POT

Re: Therapeutic Pot, letter to the editor, March 7.

So let's get this straight. Four Mounties searching a suspected marijuana
growing operation are murdered en masse, and apparently the first thing
Russell Barth of "Educators for Sensible Drug Policy" sees fit to do is to
rush out a letter to proclaim: "It was prohibition, and not cannabis users
or growers as such, that caused these senseless killings."

To the contrary, educated Canadians who purchase marijuana on the street
have blood on their hands. The reason is simple: When consumers create a
huge demand for a profitable product that is illicit, there will be a
proliferation of violent producers wishing to profit from those sales.

Stunningly, there are intelligent Canadians who clearly understand this
simple fact and yet still make the choice to buy the illicit product in
question. These people cannot absolve themselves of their connection to the
predictably murderous outcomes with pious-sounding declarations about some
liberal drug policy they envisage for their preferred society of the
future. Try as they may, pot purchasers cannot distance themselves from the
here and now, where a well-armed, murderous underworld has grown in the
shadows to fill their demand for their desired drug.

Educated Canadians who buy marijuana on street corners today make a
decision no different from choosing to donate their money to organizations
that maim and kill young people, and the victims range from police officers
to targeted competitors in the drug trade.

Perhaps using their purchased drug will help the users try to forget that
cold fact, or help them try to dream of a more liberal future where
government policies on drugs are more to their liking. Their drug use,
however, will not make the cold fact go away: Their purchases are now
harming others.

Keith Stringer

Cincinnati, Ohio.