RE "BYLAW SOUGHT AFTER POT BUST"

Dear Sirs

Rather than adding even more complications to the war on pot Abbotsford
city council should censure the federal government for creating this on
going debacle in the first place. We are faced with the fact that the
Majority of British Columbians and Canadians want marijuana completely
legalized. All problems regarding marijuana, including grow houses 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 cant afford to throw money like this into a bottomless pit any more.

Chuck Beyer
Victoria, B.C.
Canada