Blunt reader confused

[Re: Riff-Raff, July 12] Regarding the rant entitled “Oh, Cannaba!” (Oh, gawd, can’t we have just one article about marijuana that isn’t headlined by a pot-pun? Please?), would someone please explain the author’s point?

I cannot find a coherent thread running through this piece that constitutes a point, vague or otherwise, except, perhaps for the obligatory Netherlands bashing, which signals this as an anti-pot piece. Clue: Coffee shops began in 1975, and not earlier.

>> Eric Johnson

Oh Cannaba part 2

[Re: “Oh Cannaba!” by Raf Katigbak, Riff-Raff, July 12] Writing under the pen name Janey Canuck in the early 1900s, an Edmonton woman, by the name of Emily Murphy, first warned Canadians about the dread reefer and its association with dark-skinned minorities. The sensationalist yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst led to marijuana’s criminalization in the United States. At the time, marijuana use in North America was limited to Mexican immigrants and black jazz-musicians. Whites did not even begin to smoke marijuana until after it was prohibited. Almost 100 years later, Canada leads the industrialized world in cannabis consumption. Prohibition has been counterproductive at best.

What started as a racist reaction to Mexican immigration has since morphed into an intergenerational culture war, with Canada’s southern neighbour leading the global charge. The war on drugs has given the (former) land of the free the highest incarceration rate in the world. There is a good reason millions of people prefer marijuana to martinis. Cannabis is easily the least harmful recreational drug available, legal or otherwise. Science tells us that jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions. History shows they are ineffective as deterrents. It’s time for Canada to “Just Say No” to the American Inquisition.

The following Virginia Law Review article offers a good overview of the cultural roots of marijuana legislation: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/vlr/vlrtoc.htm. For additional historical background, please see the Canadian Senate report: http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/1/p-arlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/ille-e/rep-e/summary-e.pdf

>> Robert Sharpe, Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Fascist extremes

[Re: Letters, July 12] Thank you for publishing the letter from K. S. Weinstein, who has been sickened by the “vulgar anti-Semetic rhetoric” that he finds in the Mirror.

Not to be outdone, he responds with an even more vulgar Zionist hate-literature Web site, which claims that while Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews, the Arabs have been trying to finish the job for the last 60 years.

I believe that K. S. Weinstein’s response captures quite eloquently the reality that there are rabid fascists at both extremes of every political debate.

>> Carl Aboud

[Re: Letters, July 12] Contrary to Kenneth Weinstein’s suggestion, Israel is criticized not because it’s “the only nation in the world where trouble exists” but rather because decent people are appalled when Israel’s atrocities are justified, its occupation excused and ethnic cleansing white-washed.

Only Israel has wiped 400 Palestinian villages off the face of the world, while propagating the myth that it is Palestinians who want to “push Jews into the sea.” Only Israel steals tax revenues from the people it occupies, kidnaps its democratically elected parliamentarians, assassinates its blind and paraplegic leaders and in return gets lavished with financial aid and hailed as the “only democracy in the Middle East.”

Glaring injustice inevitably produces disgust and criticism. Get used to it.

>> John Dirlik

Diamonds aren’t forever

It’s nice to see an article in the Mirror about Warren Cromartie and his new movie Season of the Samurai [Re: “Cro’ knows,” July 12]. Cro was one of the greatest Expos ever and seeing his face and reading his words makes a fan long for the good ol’ days when the Expos were the talk of the town and the Big Owe was jumping with baseball.

It’s a shame that kids growing up in Montreal today will never get a chance to enjoy a game and experience the thrill of a pennant race. The closest they will get is a trip out of town to watch the dreaded Blue Jays, or maybe, eating hot dogs while playing a video game.

>> Trevor Green

Correction

[Re: Theatre, July 12] The Houdini musical has book by Ben Gonshor, it’s not based on a book by Ben Gonshor, as printed in the last issue due to an editing error.