Pubdate: Thu, 22 Nov 2007
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: James Dubro
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n1347/a01.html?99977

TARGET THE ROOTS OF CRIME

Re: Minimum drug sentences proposed Nov. 21

Long mandatory sentences for marijuana cultivation now proposed by 
the Conservative government are a cruel joke. After more than three 
decades of investigating organized crime for many books, articles and 
documentary films, I have learned that the people who run 
organized-crime groups often use disposable people to run their 
marijuana grow-ops and to sell the illicit stuff on the street. The 
government is once again appearing to do something about the drug 
problem while actually doing nothing.

The sad reality is that the "war on drugs" helps to fuel organized 
crime rather than suppress it. As long as drugs such as pot and 
ecstasy are desired and even demanded in our society, there will be a 
major increase in organized-crime activity - even if people were 
given a life sentence for trafficking.

If I have learned anything in researching organized crime, it is that 
the only way to really end the drug problem is to legalize most soft 
and hard drugs in North America, and put the billions wasted in 
prohibition efforts into better rehabilitation and education programs 
- - not prohibition armies and meaningless mandatory jail terms.

The new government proposals are empty rhetoric that may fill our 
jails but will do nothing to solve our drug or organized-crime problems.

James Dubro, Toronto
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom