Response To My Open Letter - Rob Nicholson

So, to date, more then one month after I sent the open letter to various members of parliament, only one member responded to my letter. Thursday May 24th I received the following response from the Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada:

Thank you for your letter of April 20, 2007, concerning the
decriminalization of marijuana.

At the outset, I would like to point out that Canada's New Government
has no plans to reintroduce legislation that would decriminalize the
possession of cannabis.

The Government is opposed to decriminalizing or legalizing drugs.

If you would like to learn more about the Government's intentions to
implement a national drug strategy for Canada, I would encourage you to
consult the Prime Minister's Web site,
www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1088.

Thank you again for writing.

Yours truly,

The Honourable Rob Nicholson

My Response to Rob Nicholson

To The Honourable Rob Nicholson:

Thank you for your response to my email regarding the legalization of marijuana. I am well aware of the Conservative Party’s stance on the issue, I would not have written the letter I did write had I thought your party would consider legalization as an option.

I do have to question your party's reasoning for the national drug strategy, specifically “And if we legalize drugs like marijuana, it will make it easier for our children to get hold of it.” I would like to ask you why it is you trust drug dealers, who are not exactly fine upstanding citizens, to not deal to kids more then you would trust retailers who would most likely have to apply for some sort of license similar to serving alcohol or at least a set of regulations similar to those for tobacco forbidding retailers to sell to minors.

As for “the damage it can do to our cities and our communities because of increased addiction and crime” the majority of the damage done by marijuana is purely due to the fact that it is illegal. I urge you and your fellow party members to do some research on the issue, Mr. Harper claims that “police officers and parents agree: we don’t need more of them on our streets”, but this is a misleading statement, since legalization does not necessarily mean more drugs on the street (check the statistics for the Netherlands where marijuana is defacto legal and the use of marijuana is on a decline), and many law officers are for legalization of marijuana, if not outright legalization of all drugs (which I personally do not support). Please check out the website http://www.leap.cc which is the website for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. I also urge you to read this article: http://420-now.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-every-good-conservative-should.html

I hope you take the time to read this letter and to respond. Your responses and this letter will be posted on the blog 420-now.blogspot.com and the readers of that site would love to hear from a conservative about why the conservative government, a supposed open and accountable government would not be open to a debate on the issue of legalization of marijuana.