GET TOUGH ON GROWERS

I am a former resident of Waterloo, now living in Thunder Bay for school
purposes. All of my family still lives in the Waterloo Region. In order to
keep up to date, I frequently read the news on The Record Web site, and I
have found it quite alarming lately.

The main headline has to do with another drug bust in the city. If the
police and courts would like to make their jobs easier, I say start
imposing mandatory fines on even first-time offenders, because this is a
problem we can all do without in our community.

If I was to consider making extra money by growing and/or selling drugs,
and I found out that if I get caught, I'm going to jail for a minimum of 20
years, I wouldn't do it, plain and simple (personally, 20 years is not enough).

I'm 24 years old and sooner or later, I'm going to have a family, but not
in Waterloo Region where I grew up if this problem keeps up. I would rather
have my family based here, in Thunder Bay. Yes, it has a higher crime rate
and its really really cold in the winters, but even up here the drug
problem is nowhere near as "high," no pun intended, as in Waterloo Region

Michael Perrotta