Pubdate: Mon, 13 Dec 1999
Source: Halifax Daily News (CN NS)
Copyright: 1999 The Daily News.
Contact:  http://www.hfxnews.southam.ca/
Author: Leslie A. Conrad

WAR ON DRUGS IS FUTILE

To the editor:

I read with great interest the article on the "war on drugs" (To Fight
Crime, Legalize It, The Daily News, Dec. 9).  The war on drugs is not a war
we should be taking on. First of all, you do not ever wage a war on your
own citizens - especially when those citizens say that marijuana should be
decriminalized. Prohibition never worked with alcohol, and it has not
worked for marijuana.

All the drug war is doing is making criminals out of everyday people who
otherwise are law-abiding citizens. To think that we, as a country, are
spending millions of dollars every year arresting citizens in their own
homes because they may be in possession of a small quantity of marijuana is
ludicrous. They then become criminals and are treated as such. For what?
For a product that has not killed anyone in the history of the world.

Leslie A. Conrad,
Wolfville
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