PROHIBITION THE PROBLEM

Re: Letter to Editor, "Marijuana a Gateway Drug", by Clarence Tifenbach,
July 9, 2004

Is Clarence Tifenbach's brain tainted? His poison pen strains at the
gnat of marijuana dangers, only to swallow a camel of PCP lacing.

Perhaps the drinking water in Fanny Bay is controlled by the black
market? Something must be pickling the hearts and minds in the Comox
Valley, if his probations are any indication of the general milieu. If
the irrational views he spouts off are indicative, it is that the
swill of facts he presents are horribly corrupt.

I suggest Mr. Tifenbach apply his misdirected vitriol at Prohibition
itself, at the ignorant, irrational and destructive pot laws and the
poisonous and deadly injustices it sponsors. For that is the source of
"marijuana as a gateway drug".

It is Prohibition, not marijuana, that is a gateway by enforcing
economic, recreational, medical and social non-control. Prohibition
hypocritically destroys the rational normalization and regulation of
an agricultural commodity, putting it squarely into the wiles of an
onerous and corrupt illicit marketplace.

It is Prohibition that encourages "the dangers and risks of smoking
pot" because of the dangers of it being impure. Pure cannabis is one
of the safest therapeutic herbs, its benign efficacy well-documented
and tested throughout history. It is Prohibition that promotes any
"negative effects on the brain".

It is Prohibition that makes possible the "drug-related violence
involving thefts and drug dealers", and it is Prohibition that enables
those "miserable symptoms of addiction" to flourish through the
insanity of the War on (some) Drugs. Prohibition is the abuser.
Marijuana is the victim.

David d'Apollonia