THANK YOU, CANADA

Editors -

Re: Editorial "It's Time To Legalize Pot" of Sept 5th.

I'd sure light up if I smoked. Instead I'll just have a beer, breathe a
sigh of relief down here in the U.S. and thank your Senate committee for
their vision and guts to tell the truth.

In the U.S. there is little vision, no guts and lots of official
dishonesty. Little lies like telling us that pot is 20 times as strong as
1960s' pot.(Hey, even if true we'd get less lung damage for the same amount
of active ingredient.) Big lies like telling us that pot is a "gateway" to
heroin. Really big lies like telling us that if you smoke a joint you
support terrorists. Please! It was prohibition that drove pot to its
stronger, more valuable, concealable form. It was prohibitionists who came
up with the "gateway" as a PR trick to sell their agenda, and it is
prohibition that continues to hand terrorists this cash cow.

I'd been telling my fellow Americans they'd have to look across the
Atlantic for leadership. I am delighted to be wrong.

John Chase, Palm Harbor FL