Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jun 2006
Source: Williams Lake Tribune, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 Williams Lake Tribune
Contact:  http://www.wltribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1226
Author: Mike Orr
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

ENFORCE LAWS EQUALLY

Editor:

Our prime minister says he's tough on crime, but there seems to be a 
contradiction here. I, like many other Canadians want dangerous and 
repeat violent offenders to do real time in jail, not at home easy living.

I remember a judge telling me the law is the law and it's enforced 
and obeyed. We have, I believe, police officers dispensing justice on 
the street without the authority of a judge. People are caught with 
marijuana -- apparently some are charged, some are not charged. If 
the law is the law all people caught with marijuana must be charged, 
no exceptions, regardless of the amount caught with. Laws are put in 
place to benefit the general public and show a demonstrable benefit 
to the public.

It is quite apparent that current marijuana laws have no demonstrable 
benefits. There are more people charged now, courts are burdened with 
these charges. When justice is decided by the street cop, the 
validity of marijuana laws is void. Enforce it all the time or not at 
all. You cannot have a part time law enforced by the whim of the individual.

Our prime minister says "no" to a marijuana plant God provided man to 
use. Governments overstep their authority when making laws to prevent 
use of a God-given plant. Our governments make money off taxes form 
alcohol. God did not provide the whiskey bush, vodka tree, or beer 
berries for governments to earn billions of tax dollars from at the 
expense of society.

Governments, presuming to know what God's intentions are for certain 
plants, are overstepping their authority and it is quite a mystery to 
many, who see that you can have an abortion in Canada but can't have 
marijuana. You can have heroin injections, but not marijuana. You can 
drive drunk but can't have marijuana. Give your neighbour one joint, 
get caught, and it's a lifetime ban on handguns, 10 years on rifles 
and shotguns -- yet no one is injured like in the daily use of alcohol.

But I digress. The real question here is if the law is the law, why 
is our government afraid to charge Marc Emery with selling marijuana 
seeds in Canada. For more than 10 years, with apparent impunity, Marc 
Emery has broken the law in Canada. A law Canadian authorities either 
find too absurd to prosecute, or they realized the futility of 
marijuana laws and realized public support for the current law is not 
there. Our government is cowardly in its choice to let a foreign 
government charge a Canadian citizen with a crime our government does 
not want to get tough on.

Is integrity in Mr. Harper's government a word or reality. The 
Conservative government, like prior governments, picks and chooses 
what to do based on partisan politics, not what the average Canadian 
would want.

What should concern Canadians is that your citizenship, passport, and 
life are now being compromised. You can live here politically silent 
and safe, or you can live like Marc Emery, breaking the law for 
living in a country that considers what he's done not a crime or he 
would be charged. Now America says we'll charge that politically 
motivated pot crusader and extradite him to the U.S. for decades in jail.

What utter horse apples. There are hundreds of violent murderers, 
rapists, child molesters here in Canada wanted everywhere else for 
serious crimes. They're still here but we are ready to extradite an 
activist with no violent record, because of a plant that promotes 
peace and harmony and that Marc Emery says should be legal.

It would appear that "pile" in Ottawa is the same, just different flies.

Mike Orr

Riske Creek
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman