MARIJUANA: PROHIBITION FEEDS GROWING INDUSTRY

Dear Editor,

So B.C. Solicitor General Rich Coleman thinks too many people are growing
marijuana [Solgen eyes grow ops, May 28, Langley Advance News].

Seems to me every poll done in BC shows that British Columbians don't want
marijuana prohibition. British Columbians are smarter than Rich Coleman
thinks, and can see his "pot war" rant for what it really is: a way to
distract attention from the hostile way his government is treating all
British Columbians.

This kind of "drug war" diversion may work on less educated populations to
the south, but will not reel in British Columbians who know, just as do our
federal senators and judges involved in recent court cases, that not only
is marijuana pretty innocuous, but the harm caused by prohibition is
directly proportional to its enforcement.

In the US 700 of every hundred thousand citizens are in jail, compared to
115 in Canada and 50 in most European countries. A total of 2 million are
now in prison in the US, mostly for drug-related crimes.

If Solicitor General Rich Coleman plans to emulate the monstrous failure of
the US War on Drugs, right when the rest of the civilized world is
achieving some sanity on this issue, he may well dig BC into a hole it can
not get out of.

Having declared war on much of the BC citizenry, including massive public
service layoffs, the BC Liberals can ill afford to escalate a US-style War
on Drugs in BC, as a prison building and incarceration spree will quickly
cancel out the questionable value of any of the "short-term pain" the
Liberals have inflicted, and cause harm to the only industry in BC that is
bringing in any money at all.

Chuck Beyer

Victoria

Marijuana -- Legalize Growth

Dear Editor,

Solicitor General Rich Coleman thinks B.C. pot "production" (pot seized by
the police), is too high [Pot production angers SolGen, June 14, Langley
Advance News].

I agree. Let's reduce the amount of marijuana seized to zero, by legalizing
it and thereby freeing our police officers to focus on real crime for a
change, instead of harassing growers who are no more guilty of committing a
crime than the workers in breweries and distilleries are.

Alan Randell

Victoria