TODAY'S POT RALLY PERFECTLY TIMED WITH SENATE REPORT

Today, in cities across the world, people will gather for the purpose of
promoting the decriminalization or legalization of marijuana.

One such rally will be held here in Abbotsford, in Centennial Park and,
later, at Abbotsford City Hall.

The timing of the local event couldn't have been better for organizers,
coming as it does two days after a Senate committee report declared that
marijuana is not a gateway drug that leads to usage of harder drugs like
heroin and cocaine.

The report also noted that the millions and millions of dollars being spent
on the war on pot is wasted money.

The Senate committee's findings are not new. Nor are they surprising. There
is no evidence that pot is a gateway drug, nor is there evidence that
marijuana is a mind-altering, addictive drug, as prohibitionists argue.

The Senate report, following extensive hearings and research over the past
year, also found that the effects of marijuana use are relatively benign,
that using pot does not increase aggressiveness nor lead users to commit
crime and that smoking pot does not hurt academic performance.

Perhaps most intriguing - but again, not surprising - is a question to be
raised in a questionnaire to be used in consultations in the coming weeks.
The question asks: "If Canada was to adopt a different, more liberal
approach to cannabis, should it take into account the reaction of the
U.S.A.? What would the reaction likely be?"

Of course, the answer to the latter query is obvious enough. The U.S. would
put as much pressure on Canada as possible if Parliament was to do the
right thing and take the albatross of criminality off pot use.

The failed war on drugs in the U.S. is big business, so much so that is is
fact that the CIA imported cocaine, to be sold on the streets to fund
covert operations in Central America.

The continual demonization of marijuana only helps propel the failure that
is the U.S. war on drugs.

Will today's rally in Abbotsford and elsewhere have any real effect on
marijuana's status in the Criminal Code of Canada? Probably not.

But the message protesters are sending out is indeed important. And it is
far past time that the Canadian government cease with the ludicrous, and
costly, persecution of pot use.