Pubdate: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 Source: Simcoe Reformer, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2010 Stan White Contact: http://www.simcoereformer.ca/feedback1/default.aspx?e4=an_editorialemail Website: http://simcoereformer.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2386 Author: Stan White Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n950/a01.html LEGALIZE CANNABIS AND MAKE WORLD SAFER Norfolk OPP Insp. Zvonko Horvat is doing some backwards thinking (Top cop voices concern over legal pot operations, Nov. 18). I have concern over cannabis (marijuana) prohibition, which has set up in North America in the last eight decades because it is obviously leading to serious rising crime. If allowed to continue it will create escalated extreme violent crime as is the case in Mexico. Is Horvat so ignorant that he honestly doesn't realize in October, $8,000 in cannabis was stolen from a greenhouse because artificial black market prices make the plant worth its weight in gold? Eliminate Horvat and other cannabis prohibitionists from the equation and we're talking about perhaps $800 in plant material and no theft. It's clearly time to legalize the God-given plant cannabis and make the world a safer place. Even Canada's 2002, Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs unanimously recommended to regulate cannabis the same way as alcohol and the Le Dain Commission's report did the same. Murder rates decreased for 10 years after ending the original prohibition with alcohol and there's every reason to believe ending the sequel will have the same results. Stan White Dillon, Colorado - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D