PROHIBITION DIDN'T WORK THE FIRST TIME

A century ago, our society was struggling with the evils of drug
addiction.

The struggle was intensely defined in Orillia, a rough lumber town
north of Barrie trying to find its way to respectability at the turn
of the 20th century.

The drug was alcohol.

The local newspaper played a significant role in shaping debate and,
eventually, alcohol policy on a local level. It took a strong "dry"
position on the subject.

The effects were lasting. A person had trouble buying a drink in
Orillia until the 1960s.

Moved by the social toll alcohol addiction was taking on society and
prompted by fervent, well-organized campaigns to make alcohol a banned
substance, governments in North America experimented with
prohibition.

It didn't work.

It was unpopular and ineffective. What's worse, it gave organized
crime a new lease on life - empires were built on the illegal trade of
alcohol.

Gradually, governments gave up on all-out prohibition.

Over the years, a tolerable way of dealing with alcohol
evolved.

Controlled sources, age limitations, strict laws about behaviour
involving drunkenness - all of these innovations have brought the
beast under some control, though it continues to wreak havoc and cause
social damage.

It seems to be a reasonable, if, at times, uncomfortable balance
between altruism and basic human frailties.

This past weekend, two huge marijuana-growing operations were exposed
by police. One right on Highway 11 in Oro-Medonte Township, the other
at the former Molson brewery in Barrie.

The scale and audacity of the operations is shocking. It may also be a
wake-up call.

Such operations are continuing unabated, despite more and more police
resources being thrown into the mix. The police will shut these two
huge operations down, only to have them pop up somewhere else. And the
trend is to bigger operations, not smaller ones.

There are no easy answers on decriminalizing pot. Yet we're beginning
to wonder if police and governments aren't just playing out the same
old prohibitionist scenario.

After having spent billions of taxpayers' dollars in ineffective
enforcement and inadvertently providing a business base for organized
crime that rivals that of the rum-running barons of the early 20th
century, will we eventually arrive at the same place when it comes to
pot: controlled sources, age limitations and strict laws governing
behaviour?

As a society, we need to look at the lessons of prohibition, weigh the
disadvantages of decriminalization and legalization against organized
crime, examine the health and social implications of the various
avenues open to us and abandon the hypocritical view of alcohol as the
only "acceptable" drug.

Until we iron out these difficult issues, expect a parade of
ever-larger growing operations chased by increasingly expensive and
ineffective police agencies at a huge cost to the taxpayer - while
other, more important societal problems remain underfunded and ignored.

Those most opposed to decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana might
be the criminals who grow and deal the stuff.

It would be terrible for business.

It seems to be a reasonable, if, at times, uncomfortable balance
between altruism and basic human frailties.