DRUG POLICY ISN'T WORKING

To the Editor,

Paul Willcock's Oct. 22 column (Strange drug war victories) highlighted the
absurdity of the cat and mouse game B.C.'s Organized Crime Agency plays
with marijuana growers.

Efforts to eradicate marijuana are no doubt well-intended, but ultimately
counterproductive.

The drug war's distortion of basic supply and demand dynamics makes an
easily grown weed literally worth its weight in gold.

Canadian tax dollars are being wasted on anti-drug strategies that only
make marijuana growing more profitable. With money practically growing on
trees any operations destroyed will be replaced.

And let's not kid ourselves about protecting children.

The thriving black market has no controls for age, making it easier for
teenagers to buy illegal drugs than beer.

Politicians need to stop worrying about the message drug policy reform
sends to children and start thinking about the children themselves.

There are cost-effective alternatives to the failed drug war.

In Europe, the Netherlands has successfully reduced overall drug use by
replacing marijuana prohibition with regulation. Separating the hard and
soft drug markets and establishing age controls for marijuana has proven
more effective than zero tolerance.

As the most popular illicit drug in Canada, marijuana provides the black
market contacts that introduce users to hard drugs like heroin. This
"gateway" is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

Given that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol - pot has never
been shown to cause an overdose death - it makes no sense to waste tax
dollars on policies that finance organized crime groups like the Hells
Angels and facilitate the use of addictive hard drugs.