LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Editor:

Here we go again - another front page propaganda piece about the world's
most notorious plant.

Marijuana has seen different forms of false warnings over the years. In the
'30s, people believed if you smoked it, you would kill people. In the '50s,
they told you users would go incurably insane with a single puff. Then they
told you it inevitably leads to harder stuff.

They are always wrong but they have big budgets and more resources, so they
can say whatever misinformation they want. Well, welcome to the new wave of
anti-truth: marijuana is terrorism grown by gangsters and it will lead
society into chaos.

The number of deaths caused by alcohol, not including drunk driving or
murders, in America per year is 150,000-plus. Number of deaths caused by
marijuana is zero. I dare you to find a case where somebody, has died from
a THC overdose.

These people buy Canadian products in Kamloops, boosting our economy just
to make a couple hundred bucks after six months of growing. Everybody is
missing the main point: marijuana will never go away no matter how many
peaceful, tax-paying smokers are given "stiffer sentences" or how much
police resources are wasted on this issue.

There is a simple solution, though, and it's called legalization. If it is
legal, gangsters will no longer control the devil weed. It would be in the
hands of the government which can tax the heck out of this $6-billion
Canadian industry or the corporations that would distribute. It would also
be regulated like alcohol as to prevent DUI and public intoxica tion.
Problem solved! No more gangsters, no more pushers, no more grow-ops.

Alan Ranta,
Kamloops