GROW HOUSES POINT TO NEED TO CHANGE LAWS

Dear Editor,

Your front-page coverage and editorial about marijuana grow houses (The
Banner, Nov. 18) rightly pointed out safety issues. But I wonder if all
your information was gleaned from a single OPP presentation.

For example, the police have shut down 50 such operations. And they
estimate that 10 per cent of these grow houses will eventually be destroyed
by fire. This sounds like a stretch to me. Assuming that law-enforcement
officers probably only bust about 10 per cent of all the grow houses in
operation, then there would be about 500 of them hereabouts.

So, have there been 50 house fires directly related to marijuana
cultivation? If so, it hasn't been reported.

Also, there's a broader issue here: the efficacy of our pot laws in Canada.
A study released earlier this week states that 30 per cent of all high
school students have smoked marijuana in the past year. With large numbers
of citizens of all ages indulging, is the war on pot a futile effort?

Grow houses exist because some people can make a lot of money trafficking.
If the laws were changed -- as the federal LeDain Commission suggested over
30 years ago -- the incentive for criminals wouldn't exist. And the cost to
taxpayers for busting a half million citizens for marijuana possession
wouldn't be on the books either.

Jim Hickman,

RR 1 Orangeville