RE: LEGALIZATION of marijuana. I am continually amazed by the ignorance shown by some people regarding marijuana. To equate marijuana to coke (Jim Hill, Letters, Sept 13) is like comparing aspirin to morphine.

Hill made a good point comparing today to the prohibition era. Think of all the crime, murder and illicit money used in the illegal booze trade of the prohibition era.

Then think of all the crime surrounding marijuana today. With the technology criminals have today, our police are spending way too many resources to stop criminal activity that would not even exist if it were legal to use marijuana.

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I HAVE recently returned from The Netherlands. What a wonderful people the Dutch are. They have a low crime rate, very few homeless (only in the large cities where they choose to remain homeless) and no visible heroin or cocaine problems.

Downtown Amsterdam is charming and feels very safe (even in the middle of the night), something I cannot say about downtown Calgary, Vancouver or Toronto. Amazing considering two of our great evils, soft drugs and prostitution are legal there and controlled by government. We Canadians could learn a thing or two from the Dutch.

Calvin Barr

(Like legalized euthanasia, for instance?)

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