DRUGS: LEGALIZATION IS NO SOLUTION

Dear Editor,

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 dollars 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. Like not wearing a seat belt 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. Marijuana
diminishes coordination 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, it's 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 BC and
the RCMP.

BC is known world-wide for this drug. 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 and always will be, as long as it's illegal
somewhere.

Rob Wilton, Surrey