'MARIJUANA IS AN ADDICTIVE DRUG'

Andy Ivens The Province Sgt. Scott Rintoul mans the RCMP's
drug-awareness bureau in B.C. Well-acquainted with the arguments for
legalizing marijuana, he challenges the legal-pot advocates to
consider one important point -- our children.

"It has to be our priority. They're our future," Rintoul
says.

The human brain isn't fully developed until age 21, he notes, and that
makes the effects of cannabis on them more severe.

"When we have 50- and 60-year-old people walking around saying we
should legalize cannabis and they say nothing about the young people,
that's a concern for us.

"Anyone who says drug use is a normal course of development is very
ignorant. It's absolutely not true.

"There are a lot of people who don't use drugs in our society. To
suggest that they're abnormal because they don't use drugs is wrong
[and] irresponsible.

"The majority does not smoke marijuana [or] drink [or] use
ecstasy."

Rintoul points out that B.C. has the lowest rate of tobacco use in
Canada -- 14 per cent -- but the highest proportion of marijuana users.

"We have to do what we do with tobacco to reduce the marijuana use,"
he says.

"Instead of getting out there and educating young people about the
dangers of this drug, we're in a sense implying it's not a big issue:
'Oh, but if you're predisposed to schizophrenia, you shouldn't smoke
cannabis.'

"That's a cop-out.

"Marijuana is an addictive drug. We do have people in the city of
Vancouver who are suffering a dependency on cannabis [who] are going
through treatment, yet you never hear that. Ten or 20 per cent of
marijuana users have a problem with cannabis.

"[Pot advocates] are trying to legitimize something for perhaps an
adult or a young professional -- and I think that's wrong at the
expense of young people."

Rintoul says the most hardened criminals today likely had rough
childhoods.

"They had no real prevention in their life, few adult role
models.

"We're failing at that as a society. We're not putting enough effort
into developing our young people.

"When we have an individual in Grade 4 acting out, we have to
intervene because that person could very well go on, if nothing's
done, they could go on to become quite a violent person in their teens
and go on to become a murderer or a sexual predator.

"When they wind up on the Downtown Eastside and we try to help them
with their addiction, that's way too late."

He discounts any positive outcome that taxing legal marijuana could
produce.

"That theory doesn't hold water. If we look at taxation and tobacco
right now, the taxes do not account for the health-care costs of
tobacco use."

A study by the Fraser Institute estimates the real value of B.C.'s
marijuana industry at $7 billion in 2006, the same year the value of
all the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting in B.C. totalled
$5.3 billion.

The institute says there were 17,500 grow-ops province-wide that
year.

"Don't think that all that money [$7 billion] is coming back to
British Columbia," Rintoul says.

"Some of that money is going to other countries to support other
organized-crime activities" involving cocaine, handguns and human smuggling.

He cites the recent bust of a crime group that was exporting 700
kilograms of B.C. bud worth $3 million per week to the U.S. -- and
funnelling the profits to the gang's head office in Vietnam.

"If you legalized marijuana in Canada, you would be telling that
organization, 'You now have a free reign in that activity,' because
they were not selling their marijuana in Canada, they were always
selling in the States. To legalize it here would not shut them down.

"The majority of marijuana grown in Canada is exported. So, to say,
'Oh, we'll tax that as well,' you can't tax it going down there, you
can only tax what's in Canada.

"And a lot of people would not pay taxes because they could grow it
themselves."

Rintoul also argues that a black market in marijuana would still exist
if it were legal, since growers would try to avoid paying tax on it.

[sidebar]

THE NEGATIVES

Brain: Changes in brain chemistry. Hinders the neurotransmitter
acetylcholine, a
chemical that triggers signals in the nervous system.

Mood and behaviour: Difficulty concentrating, limits attention to
detail and learning new, complex information. Impairs time perception
and certain aspects of memory, at least in the short term.

Lungs: Fifty per cent more tar than tobacco means increased
irritability, relatively
speaking, to organs as well as on upper airways (sinuses and larynx).
May cause lung,
head, neck cancer.

Heart: Changes in heart rate, blood pressure the same as those found
in a person under
high stress.

Blood flow: Decreases flow to limbs, in extreme cases may require
amputation.

Sexual reproduction: May reduce number and quality of sperm, damage
their motility, possibly affecting fertility.