To the Editor: The shelving of the Kootenay Lake School District drug policy is good news. Policies that allow for the suspension of students for marijuana use are illogical. The primary concern with student pot smoking is that the student won't learn as well. Punishing them by cutting off learning entirely is wrong-headed. High schoolers smoking marijuana has gone on for decades and is normal youthful experimentation (as Superintendent Butcher implies by suggesting suspensions for experimentation cease). And, just like the student that spends too much time playing video games, watching TV or participating in sports, some will see their grades slip. But the answer is to spend more time working with these students - all of them - not to send them away. Kirk Tousaw Campaign Manager B.C. Marijuana Party [end]
I 'm compelled to correct a wrong impression that might have been left by Dr. Ray Baker's comments about the "gateway effect" and cannabis use ["Doctor Draws On Past to Treat Addictions)", Jan. 27-Feb. 3]. Empirical evidence has demonstrated that cannabis does not cause anyone to go on to harder drugs. But a gateway effect may yet exist: one caused by drug prohibition. Because drug prohibition takes place in the black market, sellers of cannabis may also sell other drugs. A cannabis smoker, then, is more likely to encounter--and, thus, use--other drugs. This is the real meaning of "increased exposure", not that increased use of cannabis somehow causes someone to want other drugs. Ending prohibition would end this gateway effect. [continues 100 words]
The government's shameful persecution of cannabis activists continues unabated. The trafficking conviction of Ted Smith, a recognized political activist, for merely passing out joints at a rally follows closely on the heels of Marc Emery's three-month jail stint, also for passing a joint. When did sharing cannabis with friends and political supporters become "trafficking?" Though the law technically allows convictions even where no money is exchanged, there is a terrible injustice being done when political activists are targeted and treated more harshly because of their outspokenness. [continues 89 words]
It's Deputy PM Anne McLellan (Nov. 29), not lenient judges, who needs education about marijuana prohibition. She implies judges are at fault because the sentences for grow-ops are not harsh enough. But harsher sentences (and mandatory minimums) won't impact marijuana use, cultivation or trafficking. One glance at the U.S. demonstrates a "war on drugs" approach is not a solution but, rather, a contributing factor to the problem. Prohibition imposes significantly more social and economic costs than marijuana use or cultivation. The reason organized crime is involved in the marijuana trade is because it is an illegal and, thus, unregulated marketplace. Legalize and regulate pot and you'll immediately remove many of the social costs McLellan bemoans. Every major study of pot use in Canada concludes harsher sentences aren't the answer -- significant reform, including legalization, is. Kirk Tousaw Detroit (Nice try, but the facts show tough laws in the U.S. and a crackdown in B.C. are the major reason the gangs have moved their grow-ops here) [end]
Your recent editorial, Pot Law: The Border Factor, came to the right conclusion that legalizing marijuana is the best option, after winding through some significant inaccuracies. As a Detroiter, I know first-hand the volume of border traffic and the economic ramifications that flow from slowdowns at the border. And those costs are exactly why the U.S. would never tighten the border just because Canada decriminalizes possession of small amounts of pot. There is a reason that the only U.S. government official weighing in on this issue is Paul Cellucci, someone with no voice in administration policy and no clout in Washington, D.C. [continues 132 words]
Re: Cellucci Assails Pot Law, Nov. 10. Most Americans disagree with ambassador Paul Cellucci's oft-expressed antagonism to marijuana law reform. Moreover, as a dual citizen and resident of a border city, I can say from experience that Mr. Cellucci's stated concerns about border wait times are nothing more than a red herring. In today's fear-based climate, the last thing that border guards should be concerned about is marijuana smuggling. As the article notes, less than 2% of the marijuana consumed in the United States comes from Canada. Moreover, there is little evidence that "decriminalization" increases either the supply of, or demand for, marijuana. [continues 62 words]
Kudos on your editorial supporting Detroit voters' decision to end the persecution of chronically and critically ill Detroiters who choose to use plant-based medicine to treat their illnesses. It is far past time we moved beyond the government-sponsored "reefer madness" rhetoric and re-examined our approach to the marijuana plant. Cannabis was used as an effective, safe medicine for thousands of years; it has only been banned for a small fraction of that time (about 70 years). Unfortunately, the government (both federal and state) has yet to acknowledge what the science has demonstrated for years: that cannabis is good medicine. The DEA still claims that cannabis has no medical value, and that medical marijuana initiatives are a smoke screen for legalization. This is, of course, absurd. Fortunately for the users of medical cannabis and compassionate citizens, the voters of Detroit were not fooled by the propaganda heaped on us by prohibitionist forces. Kirk Tousaw Huntington Woods [end]
You ran multiple articles on the "ills" associated with the marijuana trade and cultivation. You might want to make a distinction between harms that are causally linked to cannabis-growing (none) and harms that exist only because that growing is illegal (mould, stolen electricity, funding organized crime, destruction of rental properties). There is a difference, and you do everyone a disservice when you fail to point that out. Growing cannabis is no more intrinsically harmful than growing tomatoes; the difference is that it is legal to grow tomatoes. Kirk Tousaw Vancouver, B.C. [end]
Dear Editor, I commend you on your editorial calling for radical change in our approach to drug policy in this country [Extreme need, Feb. 24 Comment, Langley Advance News]. You postulate two extremes: the U.S. enforcement-heavy model and the European treatment-heavy model. Let us be clear on which option Canada should take. The U.S. model spends trillions of taxpayer dollars annually, locks up millions of citizens, and has utterly failed to reduce either the supply of or demand for drugs. [continues 99 words]
Re: Our Gay Competitive Advantage, Jonathan Kay, Feb. 20. Mr. Kay makes some excellent points in his column. Sadly, he sullies his reasoning by slurring so-called "losers" that previously came to Canada for refuge from draconian U.S. drug policies. These "losers" according to Mr. Kay include "reefer refugees." Mr. Kay is right that gays can bring economic positives to Canada. But so can those in the cannabis industry. It is, after all, a business valued at more than $12 billion annually. That our government chooses not to take advantage of that economic boon, but rather allows it to fund organized crime, is illogical and dangerous social policy. [continues 76 words]
The Editor, Re: "Problems should be solved, not moved," the Now editorial, Jan. 31. I completely agree that the next operation should be named Get Real, but unfortunately, your editorial doesn't provide a real solution to the problems of drugs, prostitution and other prohibition-related crime. Instead, you repeat the old saw that the courts need to punish more severely. If you think that will eliminate or reduce any of the problems you identify, get real. It doesn't work elsewhere in the world (see the U.S.), and it won't work here. [continues 77 words]
To the editor: Allen Garr's story was quite well done ("Break-in proof of need for harm reduction," Jan 28). I commend Mr. Garr for not using his victimization to spread the typical message-that we need to "crack down" on drugs. He's absolutely correct-harm reduction needs to be the key focus in our public policy approach to drug use. But harm reduction alone will not get the job done. You see, we are in a bit of a paradoxical situation. We want to implement harm reduction for drug addicts, yet we have a prohibitionist approach to drugs that actually causes more harm than it prevents. The ills of prohibition are legion, and inarguable: inflated prices (causing addicts to steal, prostitute and sell drugs to support their habits), adulterated products (causing adverse reactions and overdoses), organized criminal involvement (with associated violence and turf wars) and, among many others, the creation of new and more dangerous drugs like crack and heroin (both created post-prohibition). [continues 83 words]
I MUST respond to the Letter of the Day from Det.-Const. Terry Denvir of the Toronto Police Sevices, which contained suggestions for fighting gang violence (Jan. 30). Overall, I think his recommendations are good ones (except, perhaps, having provincially paid security guards in the "projects"). However, even implementing all of them will do very little to curb prohibition-related gang violence. Gangs battle it out over drug turf because the business they are engaged in is illegal. Legal businesses have recourse to the courts and other acceptable avenues of conflict resolution. Those that deal in illegal drugs do not. So they take the law into their own hands. After all, there are tremendous profits at stake (because prohibition has inflated drug prices dramatically). [continues 107 words]
RE "TIDE is high on prevention" (Jan. 29): The idea of holding yet another summit to combat marijuana grow ops is absurd because the only strategies under discussion are proven failures. Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter acknowledges that grow ops aren't going away. The police admit that they are already working with hydro. So what is the point? Everyone knows that grow ops steal hydro to avoid detection. And they are operated unsafely (though that problem appears overblown) and in a manner that harms the property because illegal operations have no incentives to spend extra funds on safety or cleanliness. Legal businesses, on the other hand, want to be safe and want to maintain property values. Oh, and legal businesses don't trade their product for cocaine and guns. [continues 129 words]
Editor: I applaud the city's desire to craft a victim impact statement concerning marijuana grow-ops. The problem with the one being proposed is that it is totally inaccurate. Each and every one of the harms that the planned statement attributes to grow-ops exists only because we prohibit marijuana possession and cultivation. Legal businesses don't steal hydro. Legal businesses don't have guns to protect their crop. Legal businesses don't fund organized crime. Legal businesses don't trade their product for cocaine. Repealing prohibition would instantly eliminate these social harms. [continues 130 words]
The Surrey School Board's plan to bring drug dogs into the schools, at $275 a sniff, is deeply flawed. The idea is incredibly invasive of student privacy. If we continue to treat our young people as potential criminals, when the vast majority will do nothing wrong, they will live down to our expectations. And we don't really want to follow U.S.-style tactics on this issue, do we? I suspect that most of the students who run afoul of the drug laws do so because they sometimes use marijuana. Do we really want to saddle more of our young people with criminal records for engaging in a relatively harmless activity that, by all accounts, almost half the population of Canada has both participated in and wants to see legalized? [continues 87 words]
Editor: I write in response to the comments of Mr. Frank Sterle (Letters, The Times, Jan 16). He suggests that, as a past user, he can attest to the permanent damage that cannabis can cause to body and mind because, presumably, he has suffered that damage - yet provides not a single example of these supposed permanent effects. And the literature he quotes does not, in any way, suggest that cannabis use causes permanent damage. Indeed, the research on this subject is quite clear: moderate cannabis use is not permanently harmful to one's mind or body. [continues 168 words]
Kudos on calling for an end to marijuana prohibition. Repealing the harmful and costly prohibition on marijuana is a policy that should have been implemented years ago. If it had been, many of the problems we are now dealing with would never have occurred. The challenge is not whether to legalize - any rational view of the evidence mandates that conclusion. Instead, the challenge is to establish a regulatory environment that makes sense. A good first step would be to let the so-called "decriminalization" bill die a well-earned death. Kirk Tousaw Policy director B.C. Civil Liberties Association [end]
The Editor: Re: 'Why the urge to legalize pot?' Times Letters, Jan. 16. Eric Myrholm's letter contained a number of factual inaccuracies about cannabis use. But that isn't what I found striking about the letter. After all, the prohibitionists have rarely bothered to be truthful about marijuana. From the reefer madness of the 1930s, right up to the "crack of marijuana" lies today, prohibitionists have never let reality get in the way of a juicy soundbite. The reason that Myrholm's letter was so interesting was its form. After his laundry list of mostly inaccurate or exaggerated claims about the danger of cannabis, he accused the Senate of not basing its legalization recommendation on valid science. [continues 232 words]
I READ Maria McClintock's Jan. 6 story, "Brazen fraudsters mail guns, drugs to Canada" with interest. In particular, I was looking for expressions of outrage from our parliamentarians and juicy quotes from the U.S. "drug czar," John Walters. After all, the importation of heroin, cocaine and firearms from the U.S. into Canada poses significant dangers to the Canadian public. However, no such quotes appeared. I find it ironic that potential marijuana law reform efforts in Canada draw instant, loud criticism from high-placed U.S. officials like czar Walters, and from certain members of our own Parliament (like Randy White), but the much more serious and dangerous importation of guns and hard drugs from the U.S. occurs without so much as a whisper of condemnation? Isn't it time that Parliament got its priorities straight and the U.S. took responsibility for the criminal actions of its citizens instead of meddling in internal Canadian politics? Kirk Tousaw, policy director B.C. Civil Liberties Association (Missing notable quotables.) [end]
