Overthrow prohibition

[Re: “Prohibition, pot and politics,” News, April 24] I am a retired law enforcement officer and one of the first 20 Federal Medical Marijuana Exemptees in Canada.

I, like Boris St. Maurice, Adam Greenblatt and others, know that Bill C-26 is detrimental to our society as a whole and will NEVER work.

To look to our neighbours to the south and copy what they have done is preposterous! Americans are jailing one in 100 adults for drugs. This CAN’T happen in Canada!

Youth, mom-and-pop medical gardens and chronically and critically ill people will be targeted.

Please people, educate yourselves to this horribly destructive bill and vote against Bill C-26. Drugs are a health issue and should remain so. No one should EVER be jailed for a plant. Our country’s youth depend on you to know the TRUTH.

>> Alison Myrden, Leading Female Speaker for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, www.leap.cc

[Re: “More reasons to fight Bill C-26,” Letters, May 1] Mike Guetta mentions, “Had I the time, I would start an organization devoted to educating Canadians as to their right to decide according to their conscience while serving on a jury.”

Such an organization exists. Visit juror.ca to learn about jury nullification, and also Google “Grant Krieger” to find out about a medical marijuana activist who fought for this principle all the way to the Supreme Court. Information will overthrow prohibition.

>> Tim Meehan, Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis paidoc.org

The Finkelstein factor

[Re: “Of Palestine and prostitutes,” News, May 1] Norman Finkelstein represents the best of the Jewish prophetic tradition by bluntly speaking truth to power. Because of this, he is regularly maligned and ostracized by the establishment community. Like the biblical temple priests who fumed against the wandering prophets, Finkelstein’s contemporary critics are reduced to hysterical mudslinging.

But the messenger of truth cannot be silenced. When Finkelstein first spoke in Montreal more than two decades ago, he could only garner an audience of about 40 students—a dozen of whom were Hillel members that jeered, shouted and repeatedly interrupted his lecture.

Two years ago, over 600 Montrealers packed an auditorium and gave Finkelstein a standing ovation.

It is men of integrity like Finkelstein who personify the best of the Jewish tradition. To their everlasting shame, supporters of Israel’s policies embody the worst.

>> Mira Khazzam

[Re: “Of Palestine and prostitutes,” News, May 1] I read, with some interest and consternation, your recent interview with Norman Finkelstein. I remember being impressed with his book Beyond Chutzpah for making some pointed and accurate criticisms of Israel that usually don’t get made in the mainstream press. That book also, alas, contained the usual overreactions and exaggerations of the radical left  (just like some of the statements of Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the recent Obama controversy).

But I might have been too indulgent about him because if Finkelstein dismisses Holocaust museums as proliferating like Burger Kings, then this vicious slander shows an astounding insensitivity to the merciless extermination of Jews in the Second World War and I am disgusted by his reaction.

Another comment by Finkelstein which really pissed me off was his characterization of Barack Obama’s politics as “vacuous.” Nothing can be further from the truth. If you read the two books Mr. Obama wrote, you’d surprisingly discover a deep, humane and intelligent individual who has mulled over and even agonized about the great issues of life and politics in a thoughtful manner.

I would urge people in Montreal’s leftist community to read his books and his detailed political program on his Web site. No, there will not be any revolution with Obama, but a giant step forward in the right direction if he became President. He deserves our support.

>> Marco Ermacora 

Anglo militancy

[Re: “Calling all angryphones,” People, May 1] Regarding the militancy of “angryphone” Jimmy K., while I strongly support the rights of ALL Canadians to obtain services in both official languages, it seems absurd to demand “equal job opportunity.”

Every employer “discriminates” potential employees on the basis of their abilities. If I was a unilingual francophone activist making the same kind of demands in Toronto, I wouldn’t be a “franco-fâché,” I’d be an idiot.

>> Julien Vallée

CORRECTION: In last week’s article about The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema Film Fest, we briefly described the film Lacuna by Shannon Harris. It should have been For Wendy by Jacquelyn Mills. We apologize for the error.

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