MARIJUANA DEBATE DOMINATED BY RHETORIC

The story 'Canada No. 1 Supplier of U.S. Dope: Customs' (Jan. 26)
contradicts an official RCMP Criminal Intelligence report released in July
2004 ('Drug Situation in Canada - 2003') which concluded that the United
States is in fact its own number one supplier of marijuana, followed by
Mexico who exports at least twenty-seven times the amount of marijuana
attributed to Canada.

It is completely inaccurate to say that Canada is the top supplier of
marijuana to the United States, when the RCMP's own evidence explicitly
says otherwise. I'm not sure who to blame on this one, the Customs
department for making such an unsupported claim or all the newspapers who
jumped at the opportunity to make a quick buck with a sexy headline without
regard to the established evidence. Sadly, the debate on marijuana
continues to be dominated by rhetoric and not evidence.

Jody Pressman

Executive Director

NORML Canada

(The contradiction of the RCMP report by Customs is odd, albeit
not as odd as the suggestion a headline on pot at the bottom of Page 8
sells extra newspapers)