LEGALIZING POT WILL ONLY INCREASE PROBLEMS

Editor, The Star:

People who think legalizing marijuana is a solution to anything can't see
past their habit.

Marijuana is grown for one reason -- profit. Legalizing it in Canada will
change nothing. An estimated $2.6 billion worth of pot reaches the United
States every year from Surrey alone.

Regulation will have no effect on growers dealing illegally around the
world for huge profits and illegal trade.

As long as there is a market outside Canada, there will be criminals
evading police to supply it and fill their pockets with tax-free millions.
Legalizing it would be a law enforcement nightmare.

Look at the legal tobacco trade. Cheap cigarettes from Eastern Canada and
the U.S. are being smuggled into Western Canada, fueled by profit.

That is thousands of dollars for cigarettes compared to billions for
marijuana south of the border.

Legalization will only compound problems already facing police and
communities. Why add to the social and criminal problems associated with
alcohol for a noisy few?

Some short-sighted people believe they have a right to consume whatever
they want because it is their bodies. Well, they have the same rights as I
to not to wear a seat-belt while driving, or a helmet while riding a
motorcycle. Smoking pot is not an activity isolated to the user.

The U.S. Department of Health reports that in 1998, 77,000 people were
admitted to emergency rooms with marijuana-related problems. Pot diminishes
co-ordination and contains 400 known chemicals, including four times the
cancer-causing tar of cigarettes. Continued use is damaging to other
systems such as the lungs, brain and immune systems.

In an age when governments are winning multiple billions in compensation
settlements from tobacco companies, why is this even a discussion? It's
such a bad idea on so many levels its nonsensical even to consider it.

This drug is not harmless. Marijuana is used to obtain guns, cocaine and
cash to finance methamphetamine labs. Police are currently investigating 60
homicides related to marijuana, according to the solicitor general of B.C.
and the RCMP.

B.C. is known world-wide for this drug and the profits are too high for
organized crime to ignore. And the cost to society is too high for us to
ignore.

Marijuana is big business, gang-controlled and always will be, as long as
it's illegal somewhere.

ROB WILTON,

Surrey