Opinions - Not all drugs are equal: How about legal pot?

[Abrad]

www.kamloopsthisweek.com
The arrest of two alleged member of the Redd Alert street gang garnered Mounties more than two miscreant brothers.

The police seized an impressive array of weapons - that skull and bones scythe in particular had many tongues wagging - and, of course, the ubiquitous cache of illegal drugs, in this case cocaine.

On the day Kamloops Mounties were displaying their catch, they also confirmed that the city's third murder victim of the year - 36-year-old Gary Cavanagh, who was shot to death in a North Shore travel trailer - has connections to drugs.

The cops weren't saying drug-dealing or a debt related to drugs led to Cavanagh's execution, per se; only that drugs were involved.

You can take from that what you will, and the link is more than obvious.

Shortly after we ran the update on the Cavanagh murder, noting the confirmation that his untimely demise is somehow connected to drugs (gasp!), the anti-prohibitionists began sending e-mails.

From Santa Cruz, Calif. and Washington, D.C. came the missives, chiding us for daring to quote the cops on linking drugs and the murder.

If Cavanagh's death was indeed drug-related, said these advocates of drug legalization, it was the prohibition of drugs, not drugs themselves, that is to blame.

An old argument, to be sure, but one worthy of debate in light of the election in January of a federal government in Ottawa that appears ready to embrace the failed Reagan-era war on drugs in the U.S. that accomplishes nothing more than making the sale of such illicit narcotics all the more lucrative for those doing the dealing.

The question should be cleaved to deal with marijuana and all other so-called hard drugs.

Should we legalize marijuana?

Absolutely.

Should we legalize cocaine, crystal meth and heroin?

That's a much tougher question.

Regarding pot, there are enough studies - government and otherwise, from the Senate on down - that have called for decriminalization of the herb at the very least.

It is safe to say that every person in Kamloops knows at least one other person who has smoked a joint or does so regularly.

Call it six degree of inhalation.

I know countless people who treat marijuana as our father's generation treated alcohol - as a social indulgence, one to be shared at a party or consumed after a hard day at work.

And not one of the dozens of people I know who enjoy using marijuana is anywhere near the slippery slope to the world of crack, as laughably claimed by prohibitionists who parrot the lie that pot is a dangerous gateway drug.

The problem lies in the current laws. When the Conservatives decided to ditch the Liberals' progressive plan to decriminalize pot, they reinforced the warped reality that makes criminals of upstanding citizens who enjoy using marijuana.

Why that is escapes me, and it is near-impossible for Tory MPs or other prohibitionists to logically explain why vast sums of money continue to be spent outlawing pot when legalization would benefit society in at least two areas.

One, it would put a serious dent in the price of marijuana, thereby smashing the profit motive for dealers. If it is legalized, regulated and taxed like alcohol, the black market is taken out of the picture, leaving police and courts to deal with serious scourges like crack and crystal meth.

Two, legalization would make it much more difficult for minors to get their hands on a bag of weed.

Does it not strike our lawmakers as absurd that any teenager in Canada can get a weekend's worth of illegal pot at the snap of a finger, yet faces a much more difficult task securing a case of legal beer?

The former can be bought in a school hallway; the latter requires an adult to walk into a government-approved store and make a proxy purchase.

Legalizing marijuana will cut out organized crime from that crop, a crop from which criminals have been profiting since pot was first banned in the 1923 Opium and Drug Act.

On the other hand, a certain way to ensure organized crime remains in business is to follow the futility espoused by our current government, which is to emulate the long-failed U.S. "war on drugs" approach and continue to foolishly apply it to the benign plant.