COMFORT BY EXAMPLE

Kingston, Ont. -- In your editorial Decriminalization Of Cannabis
Makes Sense (Dec. 16), you wrote: "The United States' chief problem is
not with the casual smoker, but with Canadian criminals who already
grow great quantities of high-potency marijuana and smuggle it south
of the border."

Wrong. Although Canadian cannabis flows south, particularly the
high-quality British Columbia strains, the U.S. produces an excellent
sufficiency of its own. Canadian cannabis is politically significant
but its absence would not register in the global supply available
within the United States.

The chief U.S. problem is that Canadian decriminalization will give
aid and comfort to the anti "war on drugs" forces within the United
States itself. Pressure has been building steadily within the U.S. as
the rest of the world has abandoned the abstinence-based model.

The "demonstration effect" of Canadian decriminalization would greatly
complicate the internal mechanics of political suppression through
cannabis criminalization. And -- given the juggernaut that constitutes
the U.S. war on drugs -- that is not a prospect to be contemplated
with equanimity.

CRAIG JONES

Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, Queen's University