DELAY ON LEGALIZATION SERVES CRIMINALS

The most comical aspect of your Sept. 6 editorial "Don't legalize it" is
not that the Senate could propose legalizing marijuana for recreational use
but the cavalier fashion in which The Gazette so peremptorily dismisses -
not disagrees with - a report that the Canadian people, in the guise of
their government institutions, have invested two years in developing.

I am also surprised by the inconsistency between your reasons for opposing
legalization and those supporting decriminalization.You decry legalization
as a form of "encouragement," but few people would argue that simple fines
provide as effective a deterrent as criminal prosecution. The end result of
any relaxation in laws controlling the consumption of marijuana will be an
increase in use, but that increase will be almost exclusively because of
the removal of the criminal rather than the civil penalties.

What your editorial does not address is the salutary effect
decriminalization could have on the delivery of the end product. Currently,
the marijuana market is supplied exclusively by criminal organizations, in
much the same way that alcohol was controlled by organized crime during the
prohibition years in the U.S. The end result, now as then, is that all
money generated from the production and sale of a specific commodity is
reserved for those willing and able to function outside the law.

If decriminalization occurs without legalization, marijuana delivery will
remain in the hands of criminals, but consumption will almost certainly
increase dramatically. Just what we need: better-funded criminals.

Donald Dagenais

Montreal