To the Editor, Re: Marijuana prohibition expensive waste of energy, News Bulletin, Aug. 30. Not only can marijuana's attractive qualities be denied humanity (it has been part of our chemistry for hundreds of thousands of years), it is an essential requirement for natural selection's process to work. THC and any ingredient in any plant we can consume are all necessary for the creation of natural mutations, upon which natural selection works. Humans who set their own narrow viewpoint into law and stand in the way of nature will create abominations such as organized crime. This whole effect is to skew human society into an overall negative direction with increased lawlessness and further conflict. [continues 86 words]
You are not correct to assume that marijuana would have the same effect on our society as alcohol. The two are not similar. The possibility of having less consumption as in Holland where it is quasi legal is real. The task of an all-out drug war is a fantasy of right-wing zealots, whose plans-often never live up to their promise. The choice is not relevant, as marijuana is being produced, distributed and consumed all around us at all times. [continues 60 words]
Letter-writer Leroy Casterline is right about LSD not being addictive (NOW, July 5-11). For a mature person with an inquisitive mind who wishes to get an adventurous new perspective, LSD can provide life-changing insights. Native people had no qualms about finding higher planes of enlightenment with different substances. Only our modern religions are fearful of competing experiences. Vancouver [end]
I have done much more than write letters to the editor in my life. Some of my best memories include launching my hang glider off Bastion Mountain in the early 80s flying across the lake after soaring for hours and then landing near the bar. I know quite a few who lived in your neck of the woods, who have made fortunes through our government's policy of prohibition.-We laughed-at and profited from the stupid attitude of our leaders. They seem to lack the perspective and enhanced perception of marijuana users. [continues 95 words]
To the editor: Re: "Recovering addict thankful for Insite," Letters, June 20. Shelly Tomic strikes me as having a grip on the reality of the situation from a foundational level. I'd rather have outposts of reason and havens for the sick in the wilderness of hardcore addiction than organized crime controlling further enslavement. Politicians who would allow my fellow Canadians, sick as they may be, to perish in misery in order to satisfy their self righteous ideology, should be allowed to wither on the political vine. May they show themselves for the dishonest chameleons they are. Let them suffer oblivion and the forces of reason prevail. Klaus Kaczor Vancouver [end]
RE Feds' pot gouge (NOW, june 14- 20). Matt Mernagh's story on the astronomical amounts Health Canada is marking up its medpot proves the old truism that government is the most organized form of crime. Klaus Kaczor, Vancouver [end]
Arthur Kewling does convey the frustration I feel with these myopic conservatives in power (Issue# 694, March 15--22). Sadly when the need for change is greatest, our citizens resort to a cast in concrete ideology. With the decline of voter interest, poor leadership options, and a long lag time for meaningful change to come about, I see only further decline. The prohibition issue is the canary in the mineshaft. It directly points out our failure to come to grips with the simplest of problems. Shows our form of government to be useless in dealing with things on a practical level. [continues 79 words]
The deadly addiction dragon is part of nature, but to have a large lucrative criminal market left uncontrolled to recruit more victims from the ranks of your children and mine is even worse, because we have created it. The lies of DARE can't stand in for the truth of human nature. Again, I say that if humanity can't be honest with itself and come to understand human desires as part of nature today, there will be no tomorrow. Honesty and rational applied methods will lead to real results and success. DARE is pure propaganda based on moral views. It can't work and has proven itself of no effect as human curiosity and a sense of rebellious adventure will come to those DARE graduates as all others. [continues 78 words]
To the Editor, Of course the first part of the editorial is true. Our society needs a real plan, not some last century racist crusader's ill-conceived and hijacked into existence legislation, designed to oppress certain people. The article wanders into well-worn, untrue, prohibitionist rhetoric at the end when the words "mind ravaging drug" are used. There is no evidence that marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol, but safer. The entire eight-decade debacle and growth of organized crime, social disorder and danger to Canadians was due in the first place to the abdication of their duty to the citizens who elected these representatives to make good laws. There was not a word of discussion or debate. It was just a "great political idea" snuck in under the radar screen. Much like Harper's quick end run around the Bloc, it was one person's "great solution" to a non-existent problem. Klaus Kaczor Vancouver [end]
Re: "Smoking pot on campus," Nov. 1, 2006 Dear Editor, There is now a chance to study the effects of pot on the impairment of an individual. Allowing a professor to smoke on the job for his health is the perfect opportunity to study the side effects of an intelligent individual's marijuana use, unless somehow we are to think that this legal consumption is free of impairment. Because the professor is ill, he can be allowed to teach impaired goes against my understanding. According to the government, he would be dangerous behind the wheel, which requires clear thinking on a very basic level, yet he is allowed to earn a high salary instructing students who have paid large sums for excellent teaching. Does he drive to work too? Do other patients who use impairing medicines get to come to work and draw their full salary for their impaired efforts? Or do they stay home and nurse their health and not endanger others while ripping off their employer? [continues 89 words]
To the editor: Re: "Pet OD's on rise," Nov. 20. I've seen a lot of drivel in your paper but this beats it all. It clearly states, in the last paragraph, that the vet diagnosed the pet's condition as being stoned on pot and that he couldn't get the owners to admit it. This vet is so good that he can tell without a test by just looking at the dog what substance it ingested? Ya right, and then this God-like healer of pets sets himself up as the authority to judge the owners as being in denial for not submitting to his diagnosis. If he were my vet I'd have fired him. [continues 98 words]
If Canadians continue to define the drug problem in terms of good and evil and refuse to search for a rational approach, we will suffer irreversible social trauma. We must ask ourselves if drug use is part of the normal range of human experience. Only then can we deal separately with abuse as a health issue. Canadians with an enlightened perspective quickly see that by abdicating control of substances in favour of "prohibition," serious social disaster is inevitable. Drug prices rise and property crime follows suit. Prohibition defeats control. [continues 61 words]
