Pubdate: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 Source: NOW Magazine (CN ON) Copyright: 2004 NOW Communications Inc. Contact: http://www.nowtoronto.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/282 Author: Russell Barth GRASS GOUGING Re Grass Tax Grab (NOW, September 9-15). Almost every government organization in Canada is fraught with corruption and strange dealings and scandal, so is it any surprise that Revenue Canada will take taxes on an illegal substance? Who benefits form continuing prohibition? The government, police, judicial system, including lawyers, judges, court administrators, and especially organized crime. Who is suffering under continued prohibition? About 60,000 Canadians who were busted in 2003, Canadian taxpayers who pay nearly $2 billion a year in police, court and incarceration costs, sick people who need it as medicine, doctors who are pressured by the CMA and their insurance companies not to prescribe it, and future generations of Canadians. Russell Barth Ottawa - --- MAP posted-by: Josh