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Current Affairs 2007 - Letters (17 items)
| Jun 16, 2007 | PUB LTE: Protect Children By Ending Unproductive War On The article, Drug house parents face charges ( SP, June 5 ), illustrates perfectly what a complete disaster our drug policy has been for families.
In response to the dangers posed by "toxic marijuana grow operations," Alberta passed legislation that allows removing children from dangerous situations posed by drugs.
The Drug Endangered Children Act is a Band-Aid. If we are truly sincere in our desire to protect children from the dangers of a house full of plants, legalizing marijuana would be the best way to achieve that goal.
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| Apr 26, 2007 | LTE: Was It Necessary To Run Marijuana Article? Dear Editor - Re: 'Christmas for stoners' ( Guelph Mercury, April 21 ).
I was disappointed with Saturday's stoners article.
As a mother I am trying very hard to teach my children not to do drugs. I have a 10-year-old who delivers your paper and she very often reads the front-page article while she is delivering.
I am sure a lot more of our youth believe that being a stoner is fun, that such an event is like Christmas, it brings all your friends together, the police won't bother you if there are lots of people doing it.
Last time I checked it was still illegal to smoke marijuana. Why were the police not there, and why did campus security not do anything? Was it really necessary for your paper to run this article? If it was necessary could you not have put the article inside the paper to protect your youngest delivery carriers who very often just look at the front page?
C.J. Moore
Guelph
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| Apr 17, 2007 | LTE: Pot Busts And Police Propaganda Ladysmith RCMP Cpl. Rob Graves stated the net street value of 60 plants seized in the arrest was approximately $70,000.
Such a claim leads me to two obvious conclusions.
1 ) Corporal Graves and his "Green Team" task force from the Nanaimo RCMP have been smoking the proceeds of [drug busts] to derive such a net worth from 60 plants, as they seem to believe one plant has a street value of more than $1,000 dollars.
2 ) The RCMP [intentionally] exaggerate the value of seized marijuana crops by more than 90 per cent when it is seized as undried plants and have been doing so for years.
As the article [The Chronicle] published provided a picture, it was handy so the public can see from the wide angle of the lens shot what the police cut and weighed that day to come up with the ludicrous $70,000 value.
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| Apr 11, 2007 | PUB LTE: Scare Tactics Adds Up To Misguided Science Re: Mental illness another reason to ban marijuana, Feedback, the Observer, April 8.
Once again Chris Kempling is venturing into unknown waters with his assumptive, and quite frankly ignorant assertion that, "Young people need to realize today's pot can make you crazy -- permanently."
Kempling's reference to Britain's The Independent and their groveling apologetics and retractions for once advocating the legalization of cannabis is nothing but another case of misleading, false, and above all else, bad science.
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| Mar 13, 2007 | PUB LTE: Taxes Wasted On A Non-winable Drug War Re: One man charged after Lake Louise drug bust ( March 6 Crag & Canyon )
Why are they wasting funds keeping this person in jail? He is not charged with a violent crime that would require he stays locked up. When will we stop wasting huge tax dollar resources on the failed and non-winable drug war? Use the wasted funds on organized crime issues instead of a low level street dealer that will be replaced by another before he even was taken away to jail. I guess we want to model the USA. 1980 50,000 citizens in jail, today over 500,000 in US jails. Private big business in the USA locking up people for non violent crimes. Easier for big business to manage the non violent people equals more easy profits for big business on the tax payers backs of course.
KEITH FAGIN
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| Feb 21, 2007 | PUB LTE: Make It Legal Merritt's hazardous marijuana grow operations are a direct result of marijuana prohibition.
Legitimate farmers do not steal electricity to grow produce in the basements of rented homes. If legal, growing marijuana would be less profitable then farming tomatoes. As it stands, the drug war distorts market forces such that an easily grown weed is literally worth its weight in gold.
Rather than continue to subsidize organized crime, Canadian policymakers should ignore the reefer madness hysteria of the U.S. government and instead to to look their own Senate for guidance.
In the words of Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue."
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| Feb 21, 2007 | PUB LTE: It Won't Work hate to rain on your parade, but more citizens reporting each other to the police for growing cannabis will not improve the situation. ( You can help, Feb. 14 ). The police do not lack intelligence -- so to speak.
The number of growing operations reported to police in B.C. is increasing by about 48 per cent per year, outpacing efforts to investigate and close them down.
According to the RCMP, the national annual seizure average is about 1,300,000 plants. This translates into an annual production estimate ranging between 1,070 and 2,676 metric tonnes of herbal cannabis.
Only 51 tonnes were seized in 2005, or less than two per cent of the harvest.
As with wolves and their prey, police predation merely culls out the weak.
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| Feb 20, 2007 | PUB LTE: Refreshing Read Thank you to John Gleeson for writing such a sensible and honest article ( Drug profits and the big picture, Point of View, Feb. 18 ). It was so refreshing to read a drug-prohibition news piece backed up with science, facts and logic instead of quotes from police about their "beliefs" and ( questionable ) statistics.
When discussing public health and safety issues, it's absolutely essential to be unbiased, unemotional and factual -- especially by referring to reputable and independent studies, such as the Fraser Institute report, which Gleeson mentioned.
This is the kind of newspaper article we should see more often. Kudos to the Winnipeg Sun for running this important information.
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| Jan 25, 2007 | PUB LTE: Sugar Kills, Marijuana Doesn't Says Writer There are many more dealers of legal drugs that cause harm to our children and our families every day. Maybe a few of these could use a bit of the same vigilante justice as an example to others....
So, if your forming a vigilante posse, keep in mind that the marijuana sold by the local dealer has never killed anyone, sugar in the form of chocolate bars and pop sold at the local gas station kill thousands of Canadians every year.
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| Jan 18, 2007 | PUB LTE: Don't Give Up On Prohibition I'm a perfect example of people in this country and around the world who are caught in the middle of this catastrophic drug war. The strain of cannabis that works best for my health has been held hostage in the street market for the past 13 years. This, I'm sad to say, is not unusual. I receive minimal relief unless the strain available to me legally is coupled with more than 30 pharmaceutical pills a day and up to 2,000 milligrams of morphine. But I won't give up.
Please help me to legalize and regulate all drugs today so that those who are ill and vulnerable are no longer suffering and so our children learn drugs are for adults and those who are sick, dying and in pain. We don't have 50 years to wait.
Alison Myrden
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| Jan 17, 2007 | PUB LTE: Hemp Makes Climate Difference No matter what is causing climate change, one of the best things Canadians could do to reduce greenhouse gasses is grow lots of Industrial Hemp.
We have the people, we have the land, we have the know-how - we just have no political will.
Hemp ( the legal, non-drug version of the Cannabis plant ) produces more ethanol fuel per acre than any other crop. It can be used for car, truck, boat, and airplane fuel, polymer body parts, lubricants, paint, and about 25,000 other things.
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| Jan 10, 2007 | PUB LTE: Some Laws Ridiculous, Inhumane
The recent raid on Mark Russell's Mid-Island Compassion Club stands as a perfect example of the idiocy that our gutless politicians are forcing upon the police, Mark Russell, and at least 85 local people in need of medicinal marijuana.
What possible good arises from such an expenditure of valuable police time, charging Russell for aiding ill people, and driving his clients to purchase their pain relief from various sources in the black market?
Courtenay RCMP Constable Derek Kryzanowzki admits that the investigation took over a year to complete, that it wasn't instigated by a complaint from the general public, and was self-generated through one of the members in the drug section.
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| Jan 6, 2007 | PUB LTE: Don't Sacrifice Rights In War On Drugs Lawyer Robert Gill proved the maxim that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. ( "Perhaps it's time to tweak the charter," Jan 4. ) In the wake of prosecutors staying drug charges after police botched a search of a vessel carrying cannabis, Gill proposed we modify the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to allow unlawful and warrantless searches if they result in evidence of a crime.
When such fishing expeditions come up empty, we would allow victims to retain a lawyer and take the police to civil court, to sue taxpayers for damages. Assumedly when victims can not afford a lawyer, one would be provided at taxpayers' expense.
The article went on to suggest that, if after five years, we "feel" more secure, we make the gift to his profession permanent.
Thomas Jefferson ( who grew hemp ) once said: "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither." The war on drugs is a classic example. Perhaps it's time to trash the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Matthew M. Elrod
Victoria
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| Jan 5, 2007 | PUB LTE: Tumor Story A Nice Touch The busting of Mark Russell and the Mid-Island Compassion Club reminds me of Charles Dickens' apt quote: "The law is an ass."
At the same time, it draws attention to a community-need. ....
As a nurse, I cannot say enough about the professionalism of these organizations and the tremendous service they provide to the community. It's a fact: they reduce their patients' use of our over-burdened health-care system, and that's something to think about.
Also, I wouldn't put my professional reputation on the line unless I wholeheartedly supported such a venture.
So let's get with the program, people!
Liz Stonard
Coombs
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| Jan 5, 2007 | PUB LTE: Compassion Raid a Waste of Time
The recent raid on Mark Russell's Mid-Island Compassion Club stands as a perfect example of the idiocy that our gutless politicians are forcing upon the police, Mark Russell and at least 85 local people in need of medicinal marijuana.
What possible good arises from such an expenditure of valuable police time, charging Russell for aiding ill people and driving his clients to purchase their pain relief from various sources in the black market?
Courtenay RCMP Constable Derek Kryzanowzki admits that the investigation took over a year to complete, that it wasn't instigated by a complaint from the general public and was self-generated through one of the members in the drug section.
....A wish for year 2007 -- may our local police force bravely continue to dodge bullets -- but at the same time cease to make the biker gangs richer. W.L.M. Wilson Qualicum Beach
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| Jan 5, 2007 | PUB LTE: Don't Tell Others They Can't Smoke Pot John Martin's opinion on marijuana states "new evidence ( on marijuana use ) is damning for legalization and decriminalization advocates who have long argued that marijuana is essentially harmless."
I don't believe users of marijuana are advocating that marijuana is "harmless." What they are advocating is that it is a "harmless vice."
The evidence has been in for a long time that marijuana is not good for your body.
Nobody in their right mind ( pardon the pun ) can deny this.
What advocates for marijuana use are saying is that smoking pot is not criminal behaviour.
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| Jan 3, 2007 | PUB LTE: Drug Haul Numbers Misleading DRUG HAUL NUMBERS MISLEADING
Dear Editor:
I just read with interest a story by Mia Thomas regarding arrests of drug traffickers ( Burnaby RCMP punch hole in drug ring, Burnaby NOW, Dec. 27 ).
I have a bone to pick. First of all, she claims that 16 kilograms of pot is around 95,500 joints.
It's actually typically about half of that, and, more importantly, what is that point trying to be made by breaking these confiscated drugs down into their 'supposed' dose amounts?
Very few people can take a full gram of mushrooms as one dose.
Probably even less people will get over six joints from one gram ( usually it's three, maybe four ), and, as for the number of doses in a gram of cocaine, that's probably not close to the same from one person to the next.
It makes the author look like she is trying to appear knowledgable on an issue she has no knowledge about.
And, finally, so what? What exactly was the intended point of all of this?
If the point was to show how many doses the police got off the streets, it looks like there wasn't much mushroom or cocaine while it attempts to make it look as if almost one hundred thousand people were saved from the evil weed, which is misguided at best!
Perhaps she got these numbers from another source, but whoever it was, I would suggest they have no clue what they are talking about.
K.E. Byrnes
Vancouver
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