LEGAL AND PURE

Re: "Smoking tainted weed sickens Drumheller teens," Nov. 23.

You quote RCMP Const. Matt McIsaac saying: "This is a good time to remind
your kids about the hazards of marijuana. You never know what you're getting."

The good constable would have been more accurate if he had said marijuana
prohibition instead of simply marijuana, because if marijuana were
legalized and regulated as a Canadian Senate committee has recommended,
there would be no tainted weed to poison children -- just as the end of
Prohibition in the U.S. meant the end of tainted booze.

Keeping marijuana illegal abdicates control of the substance to a market
where consumers are stuck with whatever is available.

Marijuana use should be treated as a public-health matter rather than one
of criminal justice. Canada should follow the wise counsel of the Senate
committee, and not the hysterical rantings of U.S. government bureaucrats
like drug czar John Walters.

Gary Storck

Madison, Wis.