PRIORITY: POT OR MURDER?

Does anyone feel safer as a result of the crackdown on marijuana grow-ops?

Wouldn't the 20 law enforcement officers dedicated to busting grow-ops be
better utilized investigating crimes like the murder in Bear Creek Park,
reported in the same issue as the grow-op crackdown? Or do we, as a society,
feel that marijuana is a bigger problem than murder?

Police know that for every grow-op they shut down, another will spring into
life in a different home. That happens because growing marijuana is illegal.
People get stabbed, and die in fires, because growing marijuana is illegal;
not because there is something inherently dangerous about indoor gardening.
People grow lots of plants indoors without stealing electricity or risking
fires and robberies. The difference is that those plants aren't sold on the
black market. It is time to end prohibition before more people die
needlessly.

Kirk Tousaw, Policy Director

BC Civil Liberties Association