Pubdate: Sun, 18 Oct 2015
Source: Winnipeg Sun (CN MB)
Copyright: 2015 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.winnipegsun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.winnipegsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/503
Author: Robert Sharpe
Page: 9
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n566/a03.html

HARPER'S DELUSIONAL

Re: "Trudeau wrong on marijuana," Oct. 7.

Ken Robertson seems to think the best way to protect children from
drugs is to abdicate the responsibility of regulating drug sales to
organized crime. That's the status quo.

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 that sell cocaine, meth and 
heroin.

It's Prime Minister Stephen Harper who is delusional about marijuana, 
not Trudeau. Marijuana prohibition is dangerous, but the marijuana plant 
is less harmful than legal alcohol or tobacco. Former U.S. surgeon 
general C. Everett Koop famously described tobacco as more addictive 
than heroin.

Thanks to public education, legal 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

(This idea that legalizing pot is going to be a magical solution is
absurd. Ever heard of cigarette smuggling?)
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MAP posted-by: Matt