Pubdate: Wed, 09 Mar 2005
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Elizabeth Woods
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n385/a10.html

POT-SMOKING SHOULD BE PEACEFUL AND ORDERLY

The editorial "Nothing benign about grow-ops" (March 5) supports the worst 
kind of nanny state, one in which government, assuming the punitive father 
role, arbitrarily criminalizes some drugs for our own good.

But MPs are our employees, not our parents.

Their proper role is to enact laws and regulations under which adult 
citizens can indulge in "vice" -- drinking, gambling, smoking tobacco or 
marijuana, prostitution, etc. in a peaceful and orderly manner.

Driving impaired is a real crime; getting stoned at home is not.

Legalizing marijuana would not make money laundering easier. We no longer 
have prohibition. How much money is laundered through government liquor 
stores? Licensing and regulation are far better deterrents than police raids.

As for combating the health risk, subjecting citizens to the ravages of 
fines or prison to save us from the alleged ravages of marijuana is like 
taking someone's eye for breaking their own fingernail. By the TC's logic, 
we should combat smoking by making tobacco illegal.

What a boon to organized crime that would be.

The newspaper believes in smaller government: How can it support the 
inflation of police powers and police budgets to fight criminals whose 
wealth is created by the very laws being enforced? It believes in cutting 
government waste: How can it condone wasting hundreds of millions of tax 
dollars annually supporting the profits of organized crime?

Whatever harm drug use causes, criminalization makes it worse.

Elizabeth Woods,

View Royal.  
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