I found your report on the Midway drug bust both informative and disturbing (8/11/99). I live in a Sr. Cits’ apartment block where we conscientiously sort our garbage for the sake of the environment and the economy. Then we read of the RCMP roaming the countryside in helicopters looking for ‘patches of green’ which might indicate a marihuana crop. And spending weeks in court prosecuting any growers they happen to catch. Our neighbors to the south have prosecuted a ‘zero tolerance war on drugs’ for the last thirty years at a cost of nearly three trillion dollars. Net result: drugs are now purer, cheaper, and more widely available than ever before. [continues 73 words]
I live in a Sr. Cits’ apartment block where we conscientiously sort our garbage for the sake of the environment and the economy. Then we read of the RCMP roaming the countryside in helicopters looking for ‘patches of green’ which might indicate a marihuana crop. And spending weeks in court prosecuting any growers they happen to catch. Our neighbors to the south have prosecuted a ‘zero tolerance war on drugs’ for the last thirty years at a cost of nearly three trillion dollars. Net result: drugs are now purer, cheaper, and more widely available than ever before. [continues 68 words]
WHAT A great article by Kevin Martin! ("Pot crusade burning issue," Sept. 2). They put Grant Krieger in jail just as Rosa Parks was jailed a few years ago for refusing to surrender her seat at the back of the bus. Well, she has now been awarded the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honour. Perhaps Krieger will be awarded Canada's Freedom Medal one day. Compare the example of courage he sets with the posturing of our health minister! Allan Rock now wants 'more time' to look into the most investigated drug of the past century! Has our health minister no shame? Pat Dolan (It's a sticky pot for Allan Rock.) [end]
Who is RCMP Cpl. Griffiths trying to kid? Jonathan Jenkins' report (Aug. 2) indicated that it was a fairly routine affair: one known gang member slain by another. Why, then, does RCMP Cpl. Griffiths fear the slaying may lead to yet more gang-related violence? Prohibition makes it all so predictable. I grew up in the 1930s when prohibition of drugs and alcohol precipitated fierce competition for profits and gang wars. Gangsters were routinely rubbed out every other day. Prohibition also led to rampant corruption and the undermining of public order. Things continued to get worse until 1933 when Prohibition ended. Our prohibition is maintained by that unholy trio - police, press and politicians. They and your neighbourhood dealer have never had it so good. SUN editorial note: (Your alliance doesn't agree on much.) [continues 5 words]
Your report (Police Support Eased Pot Law, Aug. 27) raised one interesting question for me. Which of the following distribution systems makes the most sense? In the current system, we remove taxes and all forms of regulation; we hire and arm anyone to distribute the substance; we sell 24 hours a day to anyone of any age anywhere; we guarantee to supply the demand, including jails and schools. Under Canada's Le Dain Commission System, we tax (alcohol, tobacco and other) drugs and regulate quality, labelling and advertising; we hire licensed, trained, background-checked distributors; we prohibit sales to minors. Pat Dolan Vancouver [continues 4 words]
Your story "No Pot Luck For Rankin Inlet Man" (8/13/99) raised a couple of troubling questions. When are we going to hand over responsibility for such matters to the native communities? When are we going to end this senseless squandering of police resources? In 1997, (R. v Clay), Ontario Justice John McCart ruled, "Cannabis is not an addictive substance; does not cause a motivational syndrome; and health related costs of cannabis use are negligible when compared to the costs attributable to tobacco and alcohol consumption." His findings were confirmed by B.C. Justice F.E. Howard in a similar case in 1998. Sgt. Mark Henniker may one day discover he has been unwittingly playing a lead role in a scenario fit only for a Theater of the Absurd. Pat Dolan Vancouver B.C. [end]
NOVA PIERSON'S report on Grant Krieger's Universal Compassion Club, ("Crusader cuffed," Aug. 28) will disturb many Sun readers. The club, we are told, "sells marijuana to sick or dying people who have letters from their doctors." And this is a criminal offence? Is this the kind of justice system Canadians want? A 1997 poll found 51% of Canadians wanted marijuana decriminalized. The Swiss, it seems, are more reasonable: The Berner Zeitung reported Aug. 26, that "Tokers (Are) No Longer To Be Prosecuted." And the Fraser Institute concluded recently, "it may be that drug users are fools, maybe they are immoral, but as long as it is legal to drink and smoke yourself to death, it makes no sense to imprison some of our immoral fools and not others." (Survey published in the Vancouver Province, Sept. 6, 1998) Pat Dolan [end]
When are we going to hand over responsibility for such matters to the native communities? When are we going to end this senseless squandering of police resources? In 1997, (R. v Clay), Ontario Justice John McCart ruled, "Cannabis is not an addictive substance; does not cause a motivational syndrome; and health related costs of cannabis use are negligible when compared to the costs attributable to tobacco and alcohol consumption." His findings were confirmed by B.C. Justice F.E. Howard in a similar case in 1998. Sgt. Mark Henniker may one day discover he has been unwittingly playing a lead role in a scenario fit only for a Theater of the Absurd. Pat Dolan Vancouver B.C. [end]
He's Been "Deceived" By Anti-Drug "Propaganda" It is distressing to see someone as well-intentioned as George Chuvalo engaged in a mission that is doomed to be largely self-defeating. Like so many others, he has been deceived by a steady diet over the last 25 years of obfuscation, half-truths and down-right lies on the part of the prohibition lobby - a self-serving clique of police, press and politicians. The success of their propaganda campaign can be plainly seen in the Chuvalo story. George believes it was heroin that caused successive family tragedies. [continues 283 words]
It is distressing to see someone as well-intentioned as George Chuvalo engaged in a mission that is doomed to be largely self-defeating. Like so many others, he has been deceived by a steady diet over the last 25 years of obfuscation, half-truths and down-right lies on the part of the prohibition lobby - a self-serving clique of police, press and politicians. The success of their propaganda campaign can be plainly seen in the Chuvalo story. George believes it was heroin that caused successive family tragedies. [continues 56 words]
Re "Chief opposes legalization of marijuana". Apr.28, Calgary Herald Frank King earns our appreciation for his clear statement of Ontario Premier Mike Harris's views. I find them disturbing. I'm sure the dealers reading them chortle all the way to the bank. He says: "We are for zero tolerance...we shouldn't be making it easier for our children to get drugs." This is the statement of a man who has his feet planted firmly in mid-air. It is decisive and ludicrous. Harris affects not to know that it is precisely his prohibitionist, "zero tolerance" policy that has made marijuana more available than booze. [continues 164 words]
Re: "Medical study throws water on marijuana smoke," Calgary Herald, April 8. This article on the Institute of Medicine study was informative but somewhat one-sided. It failed to tell us that it was commissioned by White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey who is on record as saying that "there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that marijuana has any medical benefits." That it contradicted him at all is surprising. On this point, Harvard professor Lester Grinspoon, MD, comments: "The average tobacco user consumes 19 cigarettes a day. The average marijuana user consumes two to four joints per day. The exposure a cannabis smoker receives is negligible." (Report for the American Society for Cannabis Research, May 1988,p.4) [continues 187 words]
Rick Bell's clarity and simplicity are quite disarming. ("Legalized brothels make sense," Feb. 3). They make sense in Holland. Why not here? We are all members of the human race, all God's children. "Drive the streets," he says. "The option is not prostitution or no prostitution. It's regulated prostitution or, what we have now, unregulated prostitution." I can imagine the amount of spluttering that will cause. But when the spluttering subsides, the fact will remain: As long as we have streets, we will have street walkers -- unless we decide to recognize and regulate them. Our efforts to prohibit booze failed, just as the war on (some) drugs has failed. Why? Because the laws of supply and demand operate as inflexibly and inexorably as the law of gravity. When will we learn to accommodate this fact in our political life? Pat Dolan (Laws against prostitution are almost as old as the activity itself.) [end]
But when the spluttering subsides, the fact will remain: As long as we have streets, we will have street walkers -- unless we decide to recognize and regulate them. Our efforts to prohibit booze failed, just as the war on (some) drugs has failed. Why? Because the laws of supply and demand operate as inflexibly and inexorably as the law of gravity. When will we learn to accommodate this fact in our political life? Pat Dolan [end]
And all that because they are suspected of profiting from consensual crime, to wit, narcotics and prostitution. Well now, prostitution and narcotics have been around for the last 5,000 years. Perhaps it might be time to consider learning to live with them in less socially harmful ways. We have learned to live with bugs. The idea of a bug-free or a drug-free world is unrealistic. Why continue, then, to prohibit something which history tells us cannot be successfully prohibited? Why continue this childish game of "cops and robbers"? It is, after all, as researcher Levesque pointed out, not only pointless, but very, very expensive. Pat Dolan (Bugs can be kept at bay and so can outlaw bikers.) - --- Checked-by: Patrick Henry [end]
Philip Jalsevac's Nov. 28 article, Illegal Medicine, was inspiring. Kitchener residents have every reason to be proud of the Record and of Jeannette Tossounian, their own native Florence Nightingale. She has the kind of concern for others which moved those who risked all during the war years to help Jews escape the death camps. Tossounian is an example of selfless heroinism who will send an enduring and inspiring message to young people everywhere for her courage, her survival, her message, her life. To her -- and, symbolically, through her to Lynn Harichy and the others of that precious band, those few unacknowledged, oft misunderstood, frequently maligned dedicated ones -- I return the blessing so dearly bought, so freely bestowed. Pat Dolan Vancouver - --- Checked-by: Richard Lake [end]
About Doug Beazley's piece in which an Edmonton study suggests marijuana can help patients with chronic pain (Oct. 18): history records change but its reasons are soon forgotten. Emily Murphy unleashed the war dogs on drug users with her racist missionary fervour earlier this century. "We have to think of the children," they say. Odd, isn't it? That's what they said when they tore native Canadian children from their families to educate them. The families and the children and their children's children have been paying the cost of that "education" in blighted lives ever since. Nothing stales their infinite variety! Never mind the suffering of those who seek solace in the forbidden weed from the misery of another pain-wracked night. Start telling the truth about marijuana! Or bear the shame of having your secret - the secret complicity of the neutral - exposed in the pages of The Edmonton Sun. Pat Dolan - --- Checked-by: Rolf Ernst [end]
Ford's column is one long immature squawk from beginning to end. Amnesty International investigates human rights abuses world-wide. If human rights abuses exist in the United States, is it not duty-bound to report them? If it didn't, how much credibility would it command? It has put out its report. The only thing that should concern U.S. citizens is the truth of the report. Establish the truth of the allegations concerning abuses of human rights, then take action to have these abuses ended. We have no right to point the finger at others when our own house needs to be put in order. Pat Dolan [end]
Thank you for publishing Catherine Mann's letter (" Legalize Drugs ", Sept. 19 ). She rightly focused on Prohibition as the root cause of most of the problems associated with illegal drugs. Prohibition has been the law of the land for many decades. The object? Primarily to keep drugs out of the hands of young people. The result? The " prohibited " substances are cheaper, purer, and everywhere more readily available than ever. When we find we cannot keep them out of our schools, nor even out of our jails whose inmates are under 24 hour surveillance, common sense would suggest that there must be a better way. [continues 106 words]
STEPHEN YOUNG'S reaction (Aug. 30) to Jeremy Loome's description of a demoralized narcotics detective made my day. How much money will it take, indeed? Pat Dolan (Narcotics problems are not solved by throwing great wads of cash at them.) - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski [end]
