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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Ireland: Letter: Legal cannabis may ease crisis
Barry Coughlan Irish Independent
Sunday 16 Dec 2007 Legal cannabis may ease crisis Sir -- The rules have changed, the game is still the same. Reviewing our drug policy is no longer a battle between drug users and politicians. Ireland's cocaine problem is expensive, and costly in terms of the lives of young, healthy, intelligent people. Up until now, legalisation of marijuana wasn't a very important issue. It wasn't bothering a significant portion of the population. Organised crime was confined to ganglands, hard drugs were very much in the background, our drug policy wasn't on anyone's agenda. Now we must ask the question, do we want to continue to introduce our children to drug dealers who sell cocaine through the vehicle of marijuana, a drug dwarfed by the harmful effects of both our legal and illegal drugs, or can we, as a country, finally face the prejudices we have maintained against cannabis and cannabis users? Besides nipping the growth of hard drugs in the bud, benefits include crippling organised crime, unclogging the court system and opening up the doors for medicinal marijuana. That's not counting the unbelievable number of uses of the hemp plant (food, fuel, paper, clothing and sealing resin). Legalisation doesn't have to be like the Netherlands. Consider a policy similar to Spain where marijuana can be grown and consumed in the privacy of one's home, but it cannot be bought or sold. Hard drug usage in these countries are among the lowest in Europe. Barry Coughlan, Renmore, Galway http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/legal-cannabis-may-ease-crisis-1248555.html -- LCA FORUM invites YOU: http://www.lca-uk.org/lcaforum/ http://astore.amazon.co.uk/webbooks05
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