LET THE PROVINCES REGULATE MARIJUANA USE

To respond to your editorial "Why is Ottawa so afraid of pot?" (July 10).

The Chretien government is almost paralysed by its gut feeling that the
George W. Bush administration will be outraged by any move to decriminalize
any aspect of pot use. That the government has no choice (the courts have
forced its hand) will cut no ice with Bush.

Millions were lavished on the government's grow operation in an abandoned
mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man., while not one person who has medical
permission to smoke/eat pot has benefited from this largesse.

Meanwhile B.C. law enforcement officials are torching B.C. bud, alleged to
be the best pot in the world.

We are guilty of doing the same thing that the LeDain Commission deplored
30 years ago. This commission concluded that the risks posed by marijuana
do not justify the extreme measures taken to prevent its use.

The experience of enforcing prohibition should be enough for us to finally
realize that the state cannot control people's choices. The spectacle of
our government decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot and not
the growing and selling of marijuana makes our government a laughing stock.

The Canadian Senate proposes a viable solution -- that the power to
regulate marijuana should be ceded by the federal government to the
provincial governments that would regulate it as they do the wine industry.

Bernice Levitz Packford,

Victoria.