Pubdate: Thu, 26 May 2016 Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329 Author: Wayne Phillips Page: 20 Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor. Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n360/a01.html POINTLESS POT LAWS Re: No bang for taxpayers' buck with pot charges, Mark Bonokoski, May 21 This column illustrates the inherent dysfunction of legislation wherein 80 per cent of police-reported marijuana offences in Canada in 2013 were for simple possession. That possession charges represent 54 per cent of all police-reported drug crime across the country indicates that the continued engineering of legislation based around absurdly antiquated and puerile notions of criminalizing users of cannabis to protect mankind from itself has outlived its practicality. That's presuming there was any practicality or legitimacy in the "oxymoron posing as rationale" put forth justifying enforcement to begin with. Wayne Phillips Hamilton - --- (The times, they are a changin'. But this is no easy policy issue.) - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom