Pubdate: Sun, 11 Oct 2015
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)
Copyright: 2015 Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact: http://www.edmontonsun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.edmontonsun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/135
Author: Robert Sharpe
Page: 16
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n566/a04.html
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor.

LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Ken Robertson, Edmonton Sun, Oct. 7, seems to think the best way to 
protect children from drugs is to abdicate the responsibility of 
regulating drug sales to organized crime. Liberal leader Justin 
Trudeau has the right idea with his proposal to tax and regulate 
marijuana and create age controls. Legally regulating marijuana sales 
would close the gateway to hard drugs by taking distribution out of 
the hands of criminals who sell cocaine, meth and heroin. It's Prime 
Minister Stephen Harper who is delusional about marijuana.Marijuana 
prohibition is dangerous but the marijuana plant is less harmful than 
alcohol or tobacco. Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop 
described tobacco as more addictive than heroin. Thanks to public 
education, tobacco use has declined dramatically, without any need to 
arrest smokers or imprison tobacco farmers. Mandatory minimum prison 
sentences, civil asset forfeiture, random drug testing and racial 
profiling are not the most cost effective means! of discouraging 
unhealthy choices.

Robert Sharpe, MPA Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy

- ---

(We should all pay close attention to what happens in Colorado)
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom