Re: "No amnesty for dopers," Editorial, Dec. 26.

Saturday's editorial argues there should be no pardon for those convicted under a previous legal regime criminalizing marijuana, even though they would not now be prosecuted. Those poor dopers, we are told, knew they were breaking the law at the time and so must suffer the consequences. But of what were they guilty?

The changed legal regime implies something was wrong with that preceding it: either the harms of marijuana were overstated or criminalization was ineffective and possibly damaging. There is a significant question as to what constituted these dopers' guilt and what our societal response to it should be - are we perhaps guilty of authoring a harmful policy?

That's a question perhaps better left to the justice minister than to those esteemed scholars of jurisprudence who comprise the Calgary Herald editorial board.

Cameron Cotton-O'Brien, Calgary

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