Pubdate: Mon, 28 Oct 2002
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2002 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: David d'Apollonia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

LOOK TO EUROPE FOR DRUG POLICY

Changing our bad prohibitive laws that criminalize marijuana is long 
overdue (Gazette, Oct. 24, "Tolerance for legal pot higher"), considering 
the LeDain Commission recommended decriminalization way back in the early 
1970s. What are our lawmakers waiting for, permission from the Drug War 
barons in Washington?

Canada's own drug laws are evidently tweaked, to put it mildly, by the 
United States's own warped political interests and its puritanical 
social-engineering mind-set of "just say no," zero-tolerance, zero-thinking 
drug policies. Canadians deserve better than the failures of American 
prohibition.

We should be looking to the Europeans, in particular to the Netherlands, 
for a good example of not only a rational drug policy that works regarding 
marijuana use but also one that has been clearly successful in separating 
the truly dangerous hard drugs from the easy availability of the 
uncontrolled, illicit marketplace.

It's time our government wised up and dumped the delusions of prohibition. 
Decriminalization and legalization actually mean a regulated, controlled 
market - just the opposite of what criminal interdiction and prohibition 
policies have delivered for the last 70 years. Prohibition is not just a 
failure; it's a counterproductive fraud.

The majority of Canadians are trying to tell their lawmakers something. Is 
the government paying attention?

David d'Apollonia, Dollard des Ormeaux
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager