LETTER WRITERS VENT ON POT ISSUES

Too Much Money For Failure

Editor, The Star, Sir,

Congratulations to Tim Felger ("Pot billboard back with a vengeance," The
Star, Jan. 17) for his tireless crusade against the pot laws. The tax
paying public needs more champions and we have none amongst elected
officials. We are faced with the fact that the majority of British
Columbians and Canadians want marijuana completely legalized. All problems
regarding marijuana result from the fact that the Canadian government
refuses to acknowledge this.

Secondly - we just cant afford this law any more. The recent Auditor
General's report on prohibition criticized the federal government for a
lack of accountability. It confirmed that the government spends
$500-million a year on its prohibition strategy, with two-thirds of all
drug charges being for pot. $500-million a year works out to about $60,000
an hour or $1,000 a minute. Since two-thirds of charges are for pot,
two-thirds of that hourly budget, or $40,000 an hour, is spent on pot
prohibition.

Remember that Canada's books are in the red - so we are borrowing that
$40,000 an hour and will be paying interest until the government repays the
loan, which is generally never. Only the government could go to a bank and
keep getting this kind of money for a program that is such an abject
failure. Can you imagine if any one of us tried to get a loan from a bank
on a car that does not work 95 per cent of the time?

We can't afford to throw money like this into a bottomless pit any more.

CHUCK BEYER, Victoria

Protester one toke over the line

Editor, The Star, Sir,

One can't help wondering if Tim Felger was under-the-influence when he
composed his new sign in Bradner calling for the legalization of marijuana.
The absurdity of the logic on his sign may also have something to say about
the worthiness of his cause. He is suggesting changing a federal law
because the police in a particular community somewhere in BC just might
"shoot an innocent" when trying to enforce it.

Following that logic, perhaps we should legalize all drugs, ignore cross
border smuggling of goods, forget speed limits, and legalize car thefts,
just so the police won't be in danger of hurting anyone in the course of
their duties. Of course, the usual answer to such issues is to change the
way the law enforcers do things, not to change laws designed to protect
many innocents.

The sign also raises two other legal questions that can't be overlooked
given Felger's flagrant flaunting of his favourite felony. First, he
received a permit to erect the billboard for the purpose of advertising his
pizza business. Has his use of that billboard for other purposes for the
past three years been in contravention of the permit?

Second, if the billboard was a business expense for his pizza business, has
he during the past three years claimed either a capital cost deduction for
the structure or a business expense deduction for the cost of the anti
marijuana signs? We can only hope his accountant wasn't also
under-the-influence.

KEN SUMMERS,
Aldergrove

Pot not good for you

Editor, The Star, Sir,

Re "Pot billboard back with a vengeance," The Star, Jan. 17:

Is it but coincidence that I, a former frequent cannabis consumer, bump
into former smoke-up colleagues, discovering that most of them have been
left (scarred) with a serious mental illness?

Damage caused by intense THC consumption usually goes undetected until
after the consumer quits the habit - whether that means days, weeks, months
or even years. I should know, for I am living with the detrimental legacy
of my cannabis-smoking years - damage which became apparent just a few
months after I had quit the habit, so I know it was no coincidence.

I used to believe the prevalent myth that marijuana consumption is not a
serious hazard to the consumer's health. But in his book, Marihuana Today
(sic), biology professor George Russell cracks this myth with some sobering
facts. Among them: "THC, the principle psychoactive factor in cannabis,
tends to accumulate in the brain and gonads and other fatty tissues in the
manner of DDT (dichloro-diphenyltichloroethane)... Marijuana, even when
used in moderate amounts, causes damage to the entire cellular process...
Tied in with its tendency to accumulate in the brain and its capacity for
cellular damage, there is a growing body of evidence that marijuana
inflicts irreversible damage on the brain, including actual brain
atrophy..." Russell adds that eminent scientists from around the world
agree that "marijuana must be considered a very dangerous drug."

The above, of course, fails to mention the very-real potential for
considerable respiratory problems and damage. If pro-pot people propose
legalizing/decriminalizing marijuana for practical reasons - e.g. less
pressure on already-overburdened law-enforcement and justice systems - that
is one thing; but there's simply way too much of the media-propagated B.S.
out there telling our impressionable youth that pot is harmless.

FRANK G. STERLE, Jr.,
White Rock

Gov't Lets Ill Down

Editor, The Star, Sir,

I am a sec.56 exemptee with a federal license to use marijauna to treat my
chronic pain. I found myself the subject of court proceedings for which the
federal governement wishes to imprison me for growing marijuana. I have
been sitting here quietly, in pain, waiting for the federal government to
provide me with marijuana from their much touted crop in Flin Flon, which
through the media I had heard will be anytime soon.

An article in the Edmonton Sun published Saturday January 19, says that
Health Canada will now not be distributing the medicine to exemptees such
as myself for at least another year - this within days of McLellan assuming
Minister of Health responsibilities.

Whats up in Ottawa these days? Does anyone know what they are doing
anymore? Out of bureaucratic blunders and missteps you have a goodly number
of sec.56 sick people, all facing prison time over attempting to somehow
access our only medicine.

MICHAEL PATRIQUEN,
Edmonton

Conspiracy Exists

Editor, The Star, Sir,

I am writing about Kurt Langmann's column, "Conspiracy? Government's not
smart enough to fool anyone," Jan. 24.

Somebody in government is smart enough to get the majority of the people to
believe that a natural herb that has never been documented to kill a single
person, is somehow evil. Somebody in government is smart enough to get
people to believe that even though we can't keep drugs out of maximum
security prisons, if we just spend enough money, we will be able to keep
drugs out of a country with thousands of miles of international borders and
coastline.

Many people in and out of government have a vested financial interest in
perpetuating our counterproductive war on drugs. These people will do
anything and everything in their power to make sure our now illegal drugs
never become legal.

Until we can solve this problem, the drug war and prison population will
continue to expand: and our personal freedom will continue to shrink.

KIRK MUSE,
Vancouver, WA

Yes, Gov't Is Stupid

Editor, The Star, Sir,

re: "Conspiracy? Government Not Smart Enough," Jan. 24: Of course
government is not smart enough to foster Drug War on its people. After all,
it is stupid enough to allow it to continue.

It is, rather, a policy which has some unique and self-propagating
features. First, and foremost, Drug War has been the ticket by which vapid
misanthropes have been elected. They can do this because Drug War
generates, and feeds on, fear - fear of minorities, of change, of people
who are otherwise different. Thus, Drug War is the last game allowed in
that perennial sport: Hatred.

The Civil Rights laws have gradually taken race out of this game so that
drug users are the last great Threat by which morons can be whipped into
voting frenzy.

Second: Drug War enriches and empowers police and the entire vast criminal
justice edifice. It is politically impossible, without significant voter
involvement, to remove what has become the criminal justice community's
most productive source of power and money.

Conspiracy? No. Drug War is a political perpetual motion machine.

DAVE MICHON,
Eau Claire, WI

It's Dog Eat Dog

Editor, The Star, Sir,

Re: "Conspiracy? Gov't not smart enough...", Jan. 24.

"Those who believe there's some kind of nefarious government conspiracy
regarding the pot laws strike me as somewhat over the top... Certainly, it
would seem that there are vested interests in maintaining the status quo."
Your finely tuned certitude regarding the dividing line between over the
top(ness) and mere government, heavy-handed, stupidity is not supported by
the facts.

Please do some basic research into the long and tragic history of the
racist demonization of cannabis users. The history is very well documented
and leaves no doubt that powerful, selfish forces conspired to harm people
of democratic and peaceful inclination.

Also, hidden beneath giga megs of electronic flim-flam, vicious and
powerful international corporations - locked in a devastating, foolish and
unnecessary dog-eat-dog struggle - are able to buy the government in many
subtle ways.

Conspiracy? Certainly! Heaven help us all!

STEVE REIFF,
Kalaheo, Hawaii