Pubdate: Wed, 16 Sep 2015
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n517/a01.html
Author: Betty Doherty
Page: A11

CANADA NEEDS NEW APPROACH TO DRUG PROBLEM

Re: "May's link to marijuana, health care is ironic," letter, Sept. 13.

Elizabeth May's plan to legalize marijuana and use the taxes to fund 
social programs is right on the money.

In a TED talk called Everything You Think You Know about Addiction is 
Wrong, Johann Hari cites statistics in Portugal where they legalized 
every drug and put the money they were using to punish addicts to 
work building social programs that reconnected addicts to society and 
gave them a reason to get up in the morning.

A drug problem that had been getting steadily worse went into reverse 
and after 15 years, the drug problem was reduced by 50 per cent. 
Nobody in Portugal wants to go back to the old system.

May's proposal could be the beginning of the end of the drug problem 
in Canada. What we have been doing surely hasn't been working. 
Portugal has proved the new approach works. Let's get busy and make 
it work in Canada.

Betty Doherty Victoria
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom