Pubdate: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2004 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: Ivor Sargent Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04.n1333.a05.html POLICE 'HARVEST' A WASTE OF RESOURCES The annual spectacle of masses of heavily equipped police swooping down on lonely and illicit herb gardens is an amusing but expensive farce (Gazette, Sept. 18, ''It's not just weed''). The sight of armed police officers spending their precious time pulling up plants makes one wonder if public resources are being spent wisely in pursuit of failed public policy. Marijuana mania is a highly politicized concoction of fact and fantasy, in which the fact favours the ending of marijuana prohibition and the fantasy warns of doomsday if this should happen. The same debates raged in the United States during Prohibition about 75 years ago. When Prohibition ended, none of the doomsday predictions came true, but ending the public expense of enforcing Prohibition freed public funds for other applications. The additional bonus to society was the entry of alcoholic beverages into the economic mainstream as a legitimate source of employment, profit and taxation. Ivor Sargent, Ste. Adele - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin