DRUGS: UNINFORMED MP DISTURBING

Dear Editor,

I find it disturbing that Alliance MP Randy White could spend half a
million dollars and two years studying illicit drug policy and yet remain
so uninformed [White worries about marijuana limits, Dec 18, Langley
Advance News].

Pondered White, "If you can wander around with 20 to 30 marijuana joints
for so-called personal use, you have to wonder when personal possession
becomes trafficking."

When does a wine cellar become a criminal enterprise? How many kegs of beer
may a person transport in an SUV before becoming a bootlegger? Obviously it
has little to do with quantity or potential harm.

Possession becomes trafficking when someone sells any quantity of a
psychoactive substance that cannot be patented and was once unfamiliar to
caucasians.

Of course, buyers are unlikely to report being "marijuanaed" to the police.

There is no evidence that cannabis prohibition reduces use, cultivation, or
trafficking, much less the number of "pushers" selling cannabis to high
school students. The more the federal government attempts to rationalize
it, the more absurd cannabis prohibition becomes.

Having done the research on our behalf, perhaps White could explain to
taxpayers why cannabis was prohibited in 1923, and when exactly and how
cannabis prohibition started making sense.

Matthew M. Elrod Victoria