LEGALIZE IT

Dear Editor:

I'm writing in response to your editorial of Jan. 21 "Pot luck a raw deal,"
in which you acknowledge the problem the police are having regarding the
illegal marijuana trade, and lamenting the fact that most of us make light
of this. With all due respect, publishing the pre-formatted letters and
parroting the lame rationale of the prohibitionists doesn't seem to help
them. As we carry on this facade, it destroys the trust of our children,
and it reflects on our credibility. This diminishes the effectiveness of
our legitimate warnings about the dangers of harder drugs.

I'm referring to the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) report,
entitled Green Tide.

Every argument in this report, as well as the articles that scapegoat the
drugs and demonize the users, are too simplistic and they're dead wrong.

These problems are more sensibly explained as being caused by the
prohibition itself. Please take a look at any one of half a dozen or so
studies done by our own government such as the Le Dain Commission and the
Special Senate Committee report, which document all the information you
need, to do your own research.

If pot were legal, the price would be peanuts and organized crime would
have a fraction of the resources available to be plowed right back into
other illegal activities including the sale and purchase of other drugs,
prostitution, extortion and the importation of guns. Your editorial
neglected to mention that they're currently working on new methods to
defraud our bank machines and other financial systems. They certainly
wouldn't flourish as they do now, and as they did during alcohol
prohibition, where they got their foothold.

If this prohibition were lifted, police budgets could be slashed and they
would still have billions left over to go after real crime. The massive
backlog in our courts could be relieved without the inevitability of
another wholesale purge, like the one only two years ago that saw numerous
charges dismissed, including many serious crimes such as murder and sexual
assault. This time the estimates are that as many as 10,000 charges will
have to be dismissed.

Chris Bransfield

Barry's Bay