TAXES COULD REACH $2 BILLION A YEAR: SFU ECONOMIST

The Tax Windfall on Legalized Marijuana Could Reach Nearly $2 Billion a
Year, Says an Economics Professor

Stephen Easton of Simon Fraser University told The Province yesterday that
using fairly conservative figures, he has estimated that the tax on
Canada's annual marijuana consumption could yield anywhere from $180
million to $1.9 billion a year.

"It's a reasonable thing for them to contemplate," said Easton, also a
senior fellow at the Fraser Institute. "The rules make the law an ass."

Easton said if you use someone who smoked one joint a week as a guide as a
moderate user, then Canadians would consume about 63,500 kilograms a year.

At a tax rate of nearly $2,900 per kilogram, that works out to $184 million
- -- and that's the low end of the scale.

If there were 7,000 grow-ops in Vancouver and each produced 34 kg a year
that would total 238,000 kg. Taxed at $2,900 per kilogram, that could yield
about $690 million.

If there were 20,000 grow-ops, it could reach $1.9 billion.

As vice-chairman of the House of Commons committee studying the non-medical
use of drugs, Alliance MP Randy White said he is baffled as to how the
Senate reached its conclusions in yesterday's report calling for the
legalization of marijuana.

He characterized the recommendations as a Liberal tax grab.

"We have met with witnesses across Canada, in the United States and in
numerous countries in Europe -- and the general consensus is that
legalization is not the route to follow," said White.

"Legalization will, by the Senate committee's own admission, increase the
number of users of cannabis with the only true benefit going to those who
run the licensed distribution centres -- the federal government."