Editor:
Re: Legalize it, tax it, forget about it (Coast Reporter, Sept. 4)
What Brent Richter fails to realize is that The War On Plants was never meant to be won, it was meant to be continuous. It isn't about public safety, it is all about control.
This war gives the police all the leverage they need to harass the poor, the young, people of color, and people with non-regulation haircuts. It increases their budgets every year, broadens their powers, and makes their jobs never-ending, and ever-expanding.
When they bust growers, they subsidize the ones they don't catch. This makes the problem grow, which gives them the reason they need to demand even more power and money.
Marijuana will never be legalized by legislation. Legal marijuana will come the same way gay-marriage rights, abortion rights, and medical marijuana rights came to us -through the courts.
As for "decriminalization," it is a non-word meaning a non thing. Something is either legal, or it isn't. The very idea still smacks of prohibition - the Decrim brand is just Prohib Lite. We need to have pot being as legal a coffee, tobacco, soft drinks, energy drinks, and alcohol -all of which should be for adults only!
But if we accept that the government has any say over what we can do with our own bodies, then we must accept their ownership. That means the government owns us -like pets, livestock, or slaves - and that we have only the rights that they grant. No one who cares about fundamental freedoms would accept that.
Russell Barth
Federally licensed medical marijuana user
Nepean, Ont.
