Pubdate: Thu, 31 Jul 2003
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Bernice Levitz Packford

LET THE PROVINCES REGULATE MARIJUANA USE

To respond to your editorial "Why is Ottawa so afraid of pot?" (July 10).

The Chretien government is almost paralysed by its gut feeling that the 
George W. Bush administration will be outraged by any move to decriminalize 
any aspect of pot use. That the government has no choice (the courts have 
forced its hand) will cut no ice with Bush.

Millions were lavished on the government's grow operation in an abandoned 
mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man., while not one person who has medical 
permission to smoke/eat pot has benefited from this largesse.

Meanwhile B.C. law enforcement officials are torching B.C. bud, alleged to 
be the best pot in the world.

We are guilty of doing the same thing that the LeDain Commission deplored 
30 years ago. This commission concluded that the risks posed by marijuana 
do not justify the extreme measures taken to prevent its use.

The experience of enforcing prohibition should be enough for us to finally 
realize that the state cannot control people's choices. The spectacle of 
our government decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot and not 
the growing and selling of marijuana makes our government a laughing stock.

The Canadian Senate proposes a viable solution -- that the power to 
regulate marijuana should be ceded by the federal government to the 
provincial governments that would regulate it as they do the wine industry.

Bernice Levitz Packford,

Victoria.
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MAP posted-by: Beth