POT PREFERENCES

Thanks for the outstanding column by Arthur Black, Going to Pot, Dec
24. Mr. Black got it exactly right, cannabis poses far less danger to
the public safety and neighborhood tranquility than legal drugs like
alcohol and tobacco. Just try taking away a tobacco addict's butts and
you'll see some fur fly.

I would only add that 100 per cent of all cannabis-related violence is
actually cannabis prohibition violence. In the 1920s and early '30s,
and with the best of intentions, the US embarked on the noble
experiment of alcohol prohibition. It didn't stop anyone from
drinking; it only transferred control of the drug from the government
to criminal syndicates.

And so it is today with cannabis prohibition. Illegal stills and
bathtub gin (grow ops and meth labs), blind pigs (drug houses), turf
wars and drive-by shootings, police corruption and rampant disregard
for the law. Some things never change. Alcohol prohibition was finally
repealed, not because people decided alcohol wasn't so dangerous after
all; they just came to realize prohibition is worse.

Have we learned the lessons of history? Nope, not yet.

Greg Francisco