apartmentblower
Member
http://stage.www.winnipegfreepress....rper-driving-canadians-to-drink-93661634.html
Our Conservative government, which wants to jail people for possessing five marijuana plants, has no apparent idea as to what is causing violent crime in Canada. As a police officer for 20 years, I can tell you exactly the causes -- the abuse of alcohol and chemical drugs.
Smoking or growing a little pot for yourself and family ought not to be a crime and does not cause crime. A person makes a responsible decision to use pot instead of alcohol because pot is safer than alcohol in all respects.
My experience as a cop, along with my own personal experience with pot and alcohol, confirms that.
No one has ever died from using pot and pot use does not cause the social or even health problems associated with even moderate regular alcohol use.
People need a safe alternative to alcohol, an alternative that does not cause people or society problems like FAS or the homicides that occur every weekend due to the abuse of alcohol.
Millions of people use a little pot for its therapeutic value. It is estimated that 100 million people in the U.S.A. use or have used pot.
So what we have are the alcohol users in governments, policing, and the courts pushing morality upon millions of peaceful and otherwise law-abiding citizens.
Small "mom and pop" growers are effective at cutting out organized crime from profits that ultimately turn into guns and hard drugs on our streets.
Place pressure on the pot end of the balloon and the balloon expands on the other end -- alcohol and hard drug use. So we can expect, in my humble opinion, to see a rise in all areas of crime, particularly violent crime, as a result of this law. And while officers are processing people for possessing five plants, the alcoholics will get away with murder, sexual assault, domestic abuse and drunk driving.
The pot issue is nothing more than a political football. Half the population supports decriminalization or legalization. Even the opposition in Parliament supports decriminalization, but the government continues to drive everyone to drink.
Well, I and millions of others will not be driven to drink. It is far too dangerous a substance. We have made a responsible and safe choice to smoke a little pot.
Read the studies that support this view. It is like using a couple of Aspirin for pain and sense of well-being.
I thought that taking personal responsibility for one's own actions and health was the key to a civilized society. Well, we pot users do just that and are called criminals by a government that values alcohol and guns.
It seems to me that those values are the main contributing factors to the much more dangerous world we live in. It is all about control of the people and fashioning the masses into what this government wants them to be.
The police do not even enforce minor marijuana possession infractions. Stories from the street abound as to how police officers are stopping people, finding a little pot, seizing the pot and allowing the person to proceed with no charge. In one case that I'm aware of, an officer returned the pot to the suspect smiling and made mention of looking for a cocaine dealer. Why? Some police officers smoke a little pot on occasion but, more importantly, they cannot tie themselves up on victimless minor crimes when we really need them.
So the police use discretion in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto.
Yet the government will remove the common sense and discretion from police and judges by imposing mandatory minimum sentences for an innocuous minor crime. We already have relegated our judges to the level of magistrate or court clerks in levying small fine after fine for minor drug charges. And because they are sentences that fall squarely in the laps of the provincial justice ministers, the costs of sending "mom and pop" growers to jail will be borne by the provinces.
This is poor economics and the provincial governments should refuse to enforce the pot laws, as they do in Vancouver's pot-free zone.
As a taxpayer my whole life, I am dismayed that tax dollars will be wasted in the government's new offensive in its war on pot when we have so many other real problems in society.
The public wants protection from the violent criminals and could care less about what people are smoking. It is behaviour that hurts other people, where criminal intent is clear, that the public is interested in getting tough on.
If sitting in a beverage room drinking all day and watching cocaine-addicted strippers is without criminal intent, then how can smoking a little pot at home with your wife fulfil the requirement of criminal intent, especially when pot is safer than alcohol?
The government's laws concerning pot are oppressive, unfair and simply silly.
Far be it from me to recommend that millions of people who use pot therapeutically or recreationally make appointments with their doctors over the next few months to seek medical marijuana even if you're not dying from some disease or condition. The costs would devastate our health care system when legalization, control and regulation would pay for it.
Millions of Canadians will continue to ignore the pot laws. I, too, will ignore these laws and believe it is my duty to break a law that 40 to 50 per cent of the population say is unjust. I hope the police continue to use discretion, because discretion by our judges is being eliminated.
The Conservatives have started a war against independent thought and the human right to believe whatever you like if you are not victimizing other people.
Let's deal with real crime and victims, Mr. Harper, and set aside your moral agenda.
Live and let live!
Bill VanderGraaf is a retired staff sergeant in the Winnipeg Police Service. He was convicted in 2007 of growing marijuana in his home.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 13, 2010 A14
