Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 Source: Abbotsford News (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Hacker Press Ltd. Contact: http://www.abbynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1155 Author: Russell Barth HARSHER WAR ON POT DISSERVICE TO OFFICERS Editor, The News: Typically, the police are asking for stiffer penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana growers. Not only is this a disservice to the fallen officers in Alberta, but the policy will further endanger Canadian police and civilians. Police simply do not have the resources, and Canadians cannot afford to give them the resources, to ever win this "war on drugs". Cannabis is lucrative specifically because it is illegal. As long as cannabis is worth its weight in gold, people will continue to take big risks to grow it. If the sentences increase, so will the value, and so will the dangers. If cannabis were grown by licensed growers, and sold by licensed sellers, it would not only do more to keep cannabis out of the hands of children, it would take billions out of the coffers of organized crime. Regulated cannabis growing would make these clandestine growers irrelevant, and mandatory minimum sentences have failed miserably in the U.S., so there is absolutely no indication they would work here. Police would actually have more powers of investigation and enforcement in a climate of regulation, as they do now with alcohol. Why build more jails, more courthouses, hire more officers and spend billions more dollars every year on a failed policy, just to subsidize organized crime? Alcohol prohibition didn't work in the last century and it fueled organized crime. Prohibition of cannabis isn't working now, and fuels organized crime. Our government needs to regulate cannabis growing immediately or this situation will continue to get worse. Russell Barth Educators For Sensible Drug Policy Ottawa - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake