POT REPORT

Editor, The Leader:

Re: Leader, Police Chief Pans Legal pot, Sept. 6.

Do the geniuses at the Canadian Police Association (CPA) and BC Association
of Police Chiefs (BCAPC) really expect us to believe that it took them less
than a day to read, comprehensively analyze, and then speak with any
authority about a four-volume, 600-page report on cannabis by the Canadian
Senate that took literally years to research?

This definitive, four-volume report is the result of 234 individual
hearings, including testimony from around the world and from dozens of
recognized experts, by a special committee comprised of intelligent,
respected senators who were drawn from across the political spectrum. Did
your paper ask the chair of the BCAPC, Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford, if
he had actually read the entire report, let alone subjected it to a serious
analysis, before he publically denounced it?

How stupid do the police think Canadians are that we would believe
categorical denunciations of this exhaustively-researched report that were
made within a day of the report being released, and by those paid to
enforce the counterproductive and unjust cannabis laws that the report
suggests eliminating?

The hasty, reactionary and demonstrably ill-informed response by police
officers and organizations across the country to this landmark Senate
report has proven beyond any doubt that in terms of this report, and on the
subject of cannabis in general, the police literally do not know what they
are talking about.

I suggest that every Canadian should take the time to actually read this
definitive document before they make up their minds on its merit at
http://www.drugtext.org/reports/cancan/default.htm.

Chris Donald, Nova Scotia