SYSTEM WON'T CHANGE FROM WITHIN

Dear Editor,

Apart from his attempt to belittle my position on cannabis and to
confuse cannabis with "drugs," which appears to be the standard
operating procedure of anyone who fears the truth, Mr. Marsh [Poor
fellow deserves pity, Feb. 11 Letters to the Editor, Langley advance
News] seems to think that a dishonest and corrupt system can be
changed from within.

As far as I know, the only way to deal with corrupt people is to put
them in jail.

Unfortunately, the true criminals own the jails. They also own the
politicians who write the laws and the police who enforce them, as
well as the court system that interprets the laws, all for their own
benefit. I wonder just where Mr. Marsh fits within that system.

At least he seems to agree with me that the current system needs to be
changed. His tired challenge to attempt to change the system from
within might work on someone who had not spent 40 years of his life
working for the system.

The system works for its masters, and anyone who works within it is
its servant. Who bites the hand that feeds them?

Mr. Marsh likens me to a spoiled child who can't get his own way, who
would prefer to sit in an alleyway somewhere, licking my wounds.

Mr. Marsh seems to me like a spoiled child who became an ignorant
bully, blindly serving his corrupt masters, precisely to avoid being
out on the street. Poor fellow.

I do agree the alleyway is where anyone who opposes the system is
likely to end up. Mr. Marsh, and prohibitionists like him, ought to
consider what happens to a spoiled child licking his wounds in an alleyway.

A short time in the alleyway can make a person - even a spoiled child
- - very strong. It can get to be quite an expensive exercise to keep
all those spoiled children under control.

At some point you might begin to wonder how it was that you ended up
with a large number of spoiled children licking their wounds in
alleyways. You might send out the death squads, I suppose. Would that
make Mr. Marsh happy?

Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees
freedom of "thought, belief, opinion, and expression." Prohibition of
cannabis use prohibits the thought created by cannabis use, and is not
demonstrably justified in a "free and democratic society."

So it appears Canada is not a free and democratic society. The federal
government's own explanatory pamphlet, published by the Department of
Canadian Heritage, describes the Charter guarantee of freedom of
thought as freedom of an individual to create ideas.

Perhaps Mr. Marsh is one of those people who, confronted with the
failure of the system he seems to cherish, would warn anyone who
opposes it: "Don't get any ideas."

David George

Bellingham