Legalized theft inc.

In an article in Wednesday's Province newspaper the government bragged about the $293,200 piece of property they'd just "confiscated"from two men that were growing marijuana on the property.The article went on to say how since the passing of the two year old civil forfeiture act,they had seized over 4 million dollars worth of collateral.Of course there were claims of organized crime and major criminal enterprise but the simple fact is that the two men received a one year sentence each.In no other crime in which a one year sentence was the penalty would a government even consider such a huge fine as the loss of such a property.That so much money has been seized in such a short amount of time shows that the fines are exclusively drug related.If you commit any other crime you do your time and perhaps have to pay a small fine.Only in drug crimes does the government feel immune to grab everything in sight and keep it as the proceeds of crime.It's up to the owner to prove that the property was purchased with "clean" money.Like the recent cash grabs the local municipalities have used to finance their grow op raids that find no crimes,the cure is far worse than the disease.If a person wants to grow pot in a rented home the renter is stuck with the damage and the growers do their time.If the person grows on their own property they pay many times the price for the same crime.As usual,where the drug war steps in,people suffer far more than any other criminal act.This has got to stop.The majority of people in Canada want marijuana legalized.The government seems to want to grab as much free booty as it can before the inevitable legalization comes to pass.As it does with all human vices the government will fight legalization as long as the money's good and then will legalize it and begin ripping off the public by charging outrageous prices for poorer quality than was available through the black market.And we will be glad for it because they won't be throwing us in prison anymore.While the major pharmaceutical companies make up fake diseases so they can sell us useless drugs for outrageous prices.Our government spends millions of dollars telling us how terrible our drugs are.The prison industry that exists only because of bad government policy,lobby's our politicians for more money to build more prisons to house more of us behind bars.This is insanity.Prisoners are being used as slave labor in the richest country in the world and no-one is saying a thing.How did this happen and how can it be ended?When the people that are supposed to be working to make our lives better are voting for private prisons to put more and ever more of us behind bars.The system is broken.On election day find out who in your riding or district is for an end to this m adness and vote for them.It's the only way that this madness will ever end.