Pubdate: Wed, 02 May 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry

LEGAL POT CAN'T BE WORSE THAN THE STATUS QUO

Most British Columbians, I'm Sure, Won't Weep Over The Murder In
Mexico Of Drug Kingpin Tom Gisby And Other B.C. Gangbangers.

They'll figure that, if you play with fire, you deserve to get burned
- - and that assassins in the Land of the Hot Sun are simply taking care
of a problem our criminal-friendly justice system has failed to address.

However, I'm more inclined to agree with jailed pot activist Marc
Emery that no good can come from pumped-up Canuck drug dealers mixing
directly with Mexican cartels for whom survival is everything and life
is cheap.

"As a Canadian, I am very concerned about the apparent integration
between Canadian actors in the [drug]-prohibition wars and Mexican and
Latin American players," Emery told me via prison email. "That is a
very ominous development. Mexican gangs do not hesitate to use
violence or murder."

In fact, it seems as if the only recent progress in the "war on drugs"
is that the extreme violence of the infamous Colombian drug cartels
has moved north to Mexico . . . closer to B.C.

Emery, currently serving a five year U.S. term for cross-border
selling of marijuana seeds, outlined the futility of trying to police
it. He pointed out that any sharing of intelligence between Canadian
and Mexican cops is immediately accessed by the Mexican cartels.

"All levels of Mexican law enforcement and the judiciary are
completely compromised," he said from his jail in Yazoo City, Miss.
And veteran Vancouver gang expert Doug Spencer confirmed Tuesday that
corruption is rampant because of infiltration by the cartels: "It
certainly is an issue."

Emery, meanwhile, noted that drug gangs already control prisons in
Mexico and most of Latin America. "And some Canadian and U.S. prisons
are under the thumb of ethnic gangs and organized-crime cartels," he
said. "It puts ordinary prisoners at much higher risk."

The solution? Well, Emery insists we need to end drug prohibition
simultaneously in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.

I have a hard time disagreeing with him, if only because I can't
imagine that legalizing and regulating drugs would create more misery
than banning them causes now.

Besides, spending as much as $120,000 annually to keep one
educationally challenged crack dealer locked up in either Mississippi
or Matsqui is surely not the best expenditure of taxpayer cash.

As for marijuana, I don't view it as harmless as do crusaders like
Emery. But it's certainly no more harmful than booze or cigarettes.
Moreover, once the thrill of its illegality has gone up in smoke,
Canadian teens will undoubtedly view it as less appealing.

The worry is, as Spencer notes, that the drug gangs will simply switch
to other illicit substances: "If you take away their marijuana crop or
profit, they will sell more cocaine."

Well maybe, as Emery suggests, we should legalize and regulate
cocaine, too.

We should also ask why it is that so many North Americans are so
stressed by, or bored with, their lives that they need to get high in
the first place.

That, after all, is the real sickness that needs to be addressed here.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D