GRASS GOUGING

Re Grass Tax Grab (NOW, September 9-15). Almost every government
organization in Canada is fraught with corruption and strange dealings and
scandal, so is it any surprise that Revenue Canada will take taxes on an
illegal substance? Who benefits form continuing prohibition? The government,
police, judicial system, including lawyers, judges, court administrators,
and especially organized crime.

Who is suffering under continued prohibition?

About 60,000 Canadians who were busted in 2003, Canadian taxpayers who pay
nearly $2 billion a year in police, court and incarceration costs, sick
people who need it as medicine, doctors who are pressured by the CMA and
their insurance companies not to prescribe it, and future generations of
Canadians.

Russell Barth
Ottawa