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Make Pot Legal, Most Callers Say
Pubdate: Tue, 08 Aug 2000
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2000 The Toronto Star
Contact: One Yonge St., Toronto ON, M5E 1E6
Fax: (416) 869-4322
Website: http://www.thestar.com/
Forum: http://www.thestar.com/editorial/disc_board/
Author: Walter Stefaniuk
MAKE POT LEGAL, MOST CALLERS SAY
The law that makes possession of marijuana a crime has been struck down as
unconstitutional by Ontario's top court. Ottawa can appeal, amend the law or
do nothing, which would make possession of pot legal.
Thursday's question was: Should the government legalize marijuana and tax
it?
83% YES and 17% NO on 506 calls
(Note: 174 votes - 166 in favour of legalized pot - were registered in one
half-hour period. Omitting that blip, the result would have been 76 per cent
Yes and 24 per cent No).
* The situation with marijuana is very similar to the situation with liquor
during Prohibition. There's no way that it can be stopped. So much better to
legalize it and make some money taxing it - for us, not for the crooks. This
way the police will have much better control . . . and the quality can be
monitored.
* No. I'm for regulated medical use, but my son is one of those for whom it
triggered psychosis. We've been through hell. After all the favourable
publicity, he's dismissing his doctors' warnings.
* Yes, legalize marijuana and most of the other drugs under government
control. The soft drugs could be sold at the liquor store, the harder stuff
by doctors' prescriptions. The fact is, people use it and people are going
to continue to use it. It seems that (governments) never learned any lessons
from the stupidity of the farce of Prohibition back in the 1920s.
* A look at all the drunk driving deaths is enough reason not to legalize
marijuana. But it should be available for medical purposes.
* Yes, and the entire drug addiction laws should be revised because drug
addiction is not a criminal issue. It is a health issue.
* There's only one way you should be able to get marijuana, and that's with
a prescription in the drugstore. And the doctors can be watched, too.
They're pretty tricky, some of them. And anyone who says they have to have
five or six plants to smoke marijuana for nausea is pulling our legs.
They're selling it. No one can smoke that much marijuana.
* Yes, but don't tax it so heavily that it would just defeat the purpose of
legalizing it.
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