PREPOSTEROUS NOTION

Dan Gardner's summary is a nice illustration of what I learned during
my career in law enforcement. And it also jibes with the shared
experience of an increasing number of police, judges and other
criminal justice professionals who make up the non-profit educational
organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

More than 99 per cent of all drugs are legal, and for good reasons.
This helps assure that both production and commercial distribution of
risky drugs is regulated and monitored.

But when it comes to marijuana, both production and sales are
consigned to the street. Because almost all street drug dealing is
done outside of public scrutiny, asking cops to serve as the
"control" is not only unreasonable, it is a preposterous notion. The
only way we can reasonably control any drug distribution, including
marijuana, is to make it legal so it's sensibly regulated.

Legal dealers do not knowingly market to minors. Nor do they
knowingly employ minors in their operations. Legal drug dealers do
not pose danger or violence to either citizens or to police.

Why are so many of our major policy makers insisting on leaving
marijuana production and sales on the street?

Alison Myrden, Burlington

Member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)