Pubdate: Wed, 12 May 2010 Source: 100 Mile House Free Press (CN BC) Copyright: 2010 100 Mile House Free Press Contact: http://www.100milefreepress.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2143 Author: Alan Randell LAWS CAUSE PROBLEMS NOT GROW-OPS To the editor: I am responding to the story headlined, Not in our backyard, in the May 5 edition of the Free Press. This article strikes me as nothing less than a stinging indictment of our current educational system. Where is the critical thinking here? The police complain about marijuana grow-ops and their "excessive amounts of garbage and hazardous materials left behind by the operators, including electrical ballasts potentially containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)" without telling us (or perhaps they don't themselves realize) it is the law banning the plant that has caused these problems. If marijuana were a legal crop, we would run into no more problems with marijuana grow operations than we currently do with tomato grow operations. The law making marijuana illegal is a bad law because not only does it fail spectacularly at reducing usage, but it actually causes more harm and havoc than if the law had never been passed. Is that so difficult to understand? Alan Randell Victoria - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake