COME ON, JUST LEGALIZE IT!

Book Takes Readers Deep Into B.C.'S Lucrative Pot Kingdom

Bud Inc.: Inside Canada's Marijuana Industry

Ian Mulgrew Random House Canada, 287 pp.

In Bud Inc., Ian Mulgrew takes readers on a highly entertaining and
fascinating ride through B.C.'s marijuana underworld. The book is
populated with memorable, outlandish characters, and gives an
intriguing glimpse into what has become a very large and profitable
illegal industry for the province.

We meet the colourful B.C. Marijuana Party leader Marc Emery, whose
life is described as "a constant stream-of-consciousness performance
fuelled by marijuana," and various pot growers and entrepreneurs,
including Don Briere, owner of Da Kine Cafe, an Amsterdam-style pot
cafe that operated for months in Vancouver before being busted by police.

But the book isn't just entertaining. Mulgrew, who is a Vancouver Sun
legal affairs columnist, makes a strong case for legalization,
arguing that organized crime is benefiting from marijuana
prohibition. Meanwhile, pot is turning thousands of generally
law-abiding Canadian citizens who like to smoke it into criminals
(Mulgrew writes that more than 600,000 Canadians have criminal
records for marijuana possession).

In the book, Stephen Easton, an economist at the Fraser Institute,
estimates the value of the marijuana industry in B.C. at $7.7 billion
and in Canada at $19.5 billion in 2003. Easton agrees with Mulgrew
that pot prohibition is doomed to failure, like alcohol prohibition,
because there's such a large demand for it and therefore it's
extremely lucrative.

Mulgrew argues that decriminalization is not the answer because it
doesn't get rid of the lucrative black market, which organized crime
is happy to take advantage of. Meanwhile, stiffer sentences for users
and growers also don't make sense because of how pervasive marijuana use is.

Mulgrew also gives readers a crash course in the history of drug
policy in Canada. Canada criminalized marijuana in 1923. Emily Murphy
was one of the most "virulent" campaigners against the drug, and
Mulgrew includes some absurd quotes from her book The Black Canada,
which was all about marijuana.

"The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this
drug while under its influence are immune to pain and could be
severely injured without having any realization of their condition.
While in this condition they become raving maniacs and are liable to
kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons using the
most savage methods of cruelty without, as said before, any sense of
moral responsibility."

Mulgrew's book points out the complete lack of logic and rampant
hypocrisy of Canada's current pot prohibition and is very relevant to
Calgary, where grow-ops are exploding, and police and some municipal
politicians are on a crusade against the "scourge" of marijuana. The
drug war hasn't stopped drug use now, and it's unlikely that it's
going to in the future, especially with a drug that has become so
mainstream. Meanwhile, legalization would take away an easy,
lucrative revenue source for organized crime. So why are we even
debating whether or not to legalize it?