Pubdate: Sat, 09 Dec 2006
Source: Winnipeg Sun (CN MB)
Copyright: 2006 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://www.winnipegsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/503
Author: George Kosinski
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

PROHIBITION THE PROBLEM

Re: Three officers shot (Joyanne Pursaga and Tamara King, Dec. 8).

How can we protect our police? The answer is simple -- the same way 
we protect them against being shot by individuals seeking to produce, 
distribute or purchase alcohol, tobacco, coffee, Viagra, prescription 
drugs, etc.

Legalizing the small handful of illegal drugs, out of the hundreds or 
thousands on the market, and regulating them in a manner similar to 
the way legal drugs are regulated, would terminate the unnecessary 
exposure of police officers to this kind of jeopardy.

It's time we accept the fact that we can continue to have prohibition 
and all the problems that go with it, or we can have a more peaceful 
society, where the primary fuel for organized crime, not to mention 
low-level property crime, has been extinguished.

Perhaps we should begin a serious discussion about which of these two 
alternatives we prefer, since we can't have both.

George Kosinski

Gibsons, B.C.

(Until then, the law is the law.) 
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman