Pubdate: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 Source: Kamloops Daily News (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 Kamloops Daily News Contact: http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/679 Author: Lenard Segnitz LEGALIZATION WOULD ELIMINATE INDOOR GROW OPS To open I would like to state that I am not now, nor ever have been, a user of marijuana. While I support its legalization I hope I never feel the need to use it. I would hope that my son does not choose to use it for non-medical purposes. I would hope, however, that if anyone in my family felt it was medically beneficial to use marijuana that there is a safe and legal way to do so. John Noakes outlines the reasons why indoor marijuana growing is not desired. I agree with him that growing marijuana indoors is not desirable. I would add that large-scale indoor grow operation of any plant is not desirable, with the obvious exception of greenhouse growing. The motivation of those operating an indoor grow operation is precisely because of prohibition. They are trying to hide it. From out of the '50s and '60s cannabis gained the moniker "weed." That is because cannabis grows like a weed. It grows so well in most Canadian climates that farmers have used it to crowd out other weeds in their fields. In Kamloops you probably need to irrigate cannabis to get it to grow well. Legalization would completely eliminate the need or motivation to grow the stuff indoors. It is orders of magnitude cheaper to grow it in the open air. You don't need grow lights and the accompanying electricity theft. Associated indoor mold issues... gone. This leads to a problem when trying to regulate it. The reason why it is feasible to regulate alcohol and tobacco is because it's a bit tricky to produce/grow. It's not worth putting up with the hassle when the price in the store is so reasonable. Cannabis is too easy to grow so it can't be sold cheaply enough in stores to keep people from growing it themselves. Drug-running gangs would lose all interest. Legalizing marijuana is not going to eliminate gangs, however. There are plenty of other illicit activities for gangs to get themselves dirty with after you eliminate the marijuana trade. Sadly, by prohibiting cannabis to go after the narcotic marijuana we, as a society, have severely curtailed the growing of very useful hemp. Prior to marijuana's prohibition in the 1930s hemp fibers were being used to produce superior rope and fabric. One has to wonder how much oil could have been saved over the years by not producing oil-derived synthetic fibers. LENARD SEGNITZ Kamloops - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.