GREENS WANT POT LEGALIZED

Party Also Wants To Ban Tasers, Increase Energy Production

B.C. Green leader Jane Sterk said if cannabis was legalized, there
might not be a gang war going on around the Lower Mainland.

Sterk was speaking with The Province after the release of her party's
platform for the May 12 provincial election, which calls for the
legalization of cannabis, among its 500 ideas.

"The war on drugs is a colossal failure," Sterk said Friday. "It's
illogical to do something that has been such a failure."

The current gang violence is an offshoot of failed prohibition
policies, she said.

"It's over the control of controlled substances that are now deemed
to be illegal," she said.

Government should take over the production and distribution of
marijuana, she said, and take the money-making incentive away from
the criminals.

"There should not be any money to be made for the gangs in this whole
production and distribution end," she said.

Sterk said addiction should be treated as a public health issue, and
doctors given the power to prescribe drug substitutes.

The B.C. Greens also want a ban on Tasers.

"These devices are lethal," she said. "The [Robert] Dziekanski video
was the first real evidence that people would see this is what a Taser does.

"We are spending taxpayers' money to purchase a weapon that most
Canadians do not want."

Sterk said the Greens want to stimulate the B.C. economy, with energy
production and better social infrastructure.

"We would localize economies," she said. "We believe that things need
to be done differently."

The Greens support the energy-retrofit of buildings and homes,
changing the building code to make buildings net energy-producers,
and better transit.

Sterk, who will run in Esquimalt-Royal Roads, said the upcoming provincial

election should be about the future of B.C., not a choice between the
leaders of the two big parties.

"I think that is quite tragic," she said.

"The Green Party wants to talk about issues."