LEGALIZATION IS THE ONLY ANSWER

Editor:

After 35 years of steady lobbying for the removal of the unjust laws
surrounding the cultivation and use of Cannabis (Marijuana) I am still both
amazed and saddened when I read misguided criticisms such as those
presented by Alan Randell in your Dec. 18th edition.

Obviously, in Mr. Randell's mind, the only benefit to decriminalization
would be to allow, as he said, "the children of the rich to use marijuana
and still become doctors and lawyers like Mummy and Daddy." Is this ALL
that Mr. Randell can envision in such a positive step toward complete
legalization of the much maligned herb?

What about the thousands of innocent (yes, Mr. Randell, innocent) people
who have had their personal lives and careers and those of their families
and friend destroyed by these ongoing draconian laws that serve no sane
purpose other than to perpetuate fear and loathing of Canada's justice system?

Marijuana has never been a problem for the millions of Canadians who use it.

It's only problematic for law enforcement agencies and politicians who have
desperately tried to stem the growing tide of use by doing their utmost to
brainwash the general public into accepting the lies that this medicinal
herb is somehow dangerous to the user's well being.

Full legalization without government involvement is the needed solution to
this ongoing legal dispute. Once all restrictions have been removed then it
will find its natural level without the instigated terror now attached to
it's illegal cultivation and use.

It is your reasoning Mr. Randell that is a "crooked road to nowhere."
You've either got some personal torch to bear regarding this issue or else
you somehow benefit financially from the laws as they now stand. To
suggest, as you have in your quote from the senate committee report, that
decriminalization, "...is in fact the worst case scenario, depriving the
State of a necessary regulatory tool for dealing with the entire
production, distribution, and consumption network ..." is to overlook the
fact that the State has no business involving itself in the personal lives
of individual citizens and that were it to seriously attempt to take over
the marijuana industry it would likely dwarf even the gun registration
fiasco that we're now witnessing in terms of cost and blunders. The less
the State is involved in anything the better the general citizenry are.

Finally, to compare decriminalization to the issue of slavery is highly
unfair and unjustified. It could just as easily be stated that your own
prejudice toward freeing the herb is also a form of mental slavery to the
great taskmaster, Ignorance. I would hope that for folks such as yourself
full and unqualified emancipation comes soon.

Arthur Topham

Quesnel, B.C.