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Government's stance on pot is 'reefer madness'

Mandatory minimums, for example, have been proven time and again to be a heavy financial and social burden on society.

To the Editor,

Re: Canada plays follow the leader on pot laws, Opinion, March 11.

Your column misses the point of both the police and our current government’s desire to ticket cannabis.

The plan has nothing to do with loosening cannabis laws or their opinions of the drug and those who use it. For them it is simple pragmatism: police don’t like the work of arresting a casual cannabis smoker, more so as the cases are rarely prosecuted and even more rarely successful, so they want something that hurts cannabis users and is easy for them to do. Tickets fit the bill perfectly.

As for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his followers, they are doing everything they can to perpetuate the now decades-old ‘reefer madness’ so they can continue to drag us down the path the United States is desperately trying to reverse.

Mandatory minimums, for example, have been proven time and again to be a heavy financial and social burden on society yielding no effective deterrence, but my, doesn’t it look impressive to be ‘tough on crime,’ as Richard Nixon showed us.

The only possible turning point in the misplaced and failed war on cannabis will be when Harper is but a stain in our history books.

Whelm Kingvia e-mail