PROHIBITION CAUSES VIOLENCE

RE "Pot growers dig rural areas," (Feb. 27): Cornwall RCMP spokeswoman
Sharon Villeneuve claims "Often we find out that even home invasions end up
having to do with drug money or to pay for drugs and everything is
interrelated when it comes to violence."

"It wasn't the case this time, but there are other times when loaded guns
are seized. So it is dangerous for the whole community."

Well, the illegal liquor trade in the 1920s and '30s was responsible for
extreme levels of violence and murder, but when prohibition was repealed,
it simply ended. When are the authorities going to wake up to the fact that
marijuana does not cause violence; it's the illegality of marijuana that
causes the violence. Didn't anybody learn anything from prohibition?

Of course, legalized pot would also generate lots of cash and free up law
enforcement so they'd be more effective going after the hard drug dealers.

Steve Ironstone

(... Which will be the next type of substance for crooks to kill each other
over)