GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE REAPING 'GREEN' PROFITS

Editor:

The Honourable Rich Coleman, Solicitor General, should be
congratulated: Not for the government's latest scheme to maintain the
support of its all-important drunk-driver constituency but for daring
to fathom a notion unpopular amongst elected officials. As luck would
have it, this notion, according to the latest public opinion polling,
is popular amongst the citizens said officials supposedly represent.

This notion is to remove the criminality from behaviour that poses no
harm to society. Ironically, one of Canada's most powerful unelected
officials, Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, has caught this drift.
The following is from her judgement of a recent case:

"If there remained any doubt as to whether the harms associated with
marihuana use justified the state in using imprisonment as a sanction
against its possession, this doubt disappears when the harms caused by
the prohibition are put in the balance."

The generally overlooked harm caused by said prohibition is the profit
harvested by slovenly yet relatively organized pot-racketeers such as
the Hells Angels, and their lowly local chambermaids, the far from
Renegades.

Indeed, a substantial portion of the money within the black market
marijuana industry funds the activities of nefarious individuals and
parties.

I'd be remiss to mention the Liberals' "Investi-gate" scandal as the
courts have yet to disclose information on the warrants used to raid
the Legislature.

The corollary of this aforementioned notion is fleetingly touched upon
in the Solicitor General's latest dubious claim that proceeds from
B.C.'s thriving marijuana industry fund insurgents in
Afghanistan.

If the Solicitor General's motives behind this claim are genuine, then
it is imperative that his government petition their fellow Liberals in
Ottawa to legalize marijuana through the regulation of its
distribution. By this action, the Solicitor General would prove to
himself that he is willing to take the necessary steps to combat the
barbarous forces of Islamic fundamentalism.

If marijuana were treated as alcohol is in BC, only then would the
"green" profits fail from entering into the hands of criminal gangs
and remain with all B.C.'ers via the provincial government.

The fact that the Solicitor General has yet to claim that profits from
the provincially-owned liquor stores fund the wretched allies of al
Qaida and the Taliban proves this point.

But then again, the warrants have yet to be unsealed.

Peter Huisman