(a letter published in the Vancouver Sun, Dec. 3, 2013)...
Re: Pot-smoking Mountie illustrates need to change drug laws, Column, Nov. 30
There are overwhelming reasons, evidence, and science against legalization of marijuana.
Taxes on legal marijuana would be offset by higher social, health care, criminal justice costs and lost workplace productivity. We'd have additional road carnage from more dopeaddled drivers. Myriad medical studies show marijuana's toxicity to cells, DNA; its links to schizophrenia and psychosis in some people, memory problems and increased risk of cancer.
Marijuana has all the noxious chemicals contained in tobacco except nicotine. One in 10 users (and one in six among adolescents) develop dependence.
Legalization would send mixed messages to kids about drugs. Displaced pot-pushers and distribution channels would be driven into more deadly designer drugs. There is a race to produce ever-increasing THC content levels. Australia reports THC topping out at 40 per cent, compared with the two-to-four per cent reefer of the 1970s. So let's get real: There will always be some form of marijuana prohibition.
Colorado and Washington face a raft of implementation fears and challenges, including black market price undercutting, while in the Netherlands a judge, provinces and towns have all made rulings against cannabis use in an attempt to contain serious and evolving marijuana industry problems.
Rob Brandreth-Gibbs,
Vancouver
Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Legalizing+marijuana+answer/9239899/story.html#ixzz2reeilGph
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