TIME TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

I was in the liquor store the other day buying some coffee liqueur.
Although I normally go for the big name brand, I thought I would try
for the 100- mile diet. Sure enough, I could save 25 per cent off
the price and stimulate the local economy by purchasing a product
made in Grimsby, not 80 miles away.

It was six per cent higher in alcohol to boot. Checking this fact
reminded me of my student days in university when our house had an
all-night Godzilla film festival. I was in charge of the
refreshments and had strict orders to get the most alcohol for the buck.

I did the math, cents per millilitre of alcohol. It turned out that
Canadian Sauterne was the most economical buzz. We were too young to
kid ourselves; we were going to a store dedicated to selling a drug.
Different concentrations, different flavours, carbonated or mixed,
all a medium for delivering a psychoactive substance sanctioned by
our society to give us a legal high.

I'm a bit surprised that in the 30 years since our Godzilla festival,
alcohol has kept its status while cannabis has remained outside the
law. I'm wondering if these tough times might bring some objective
thinking about what the cost of chasing dope-smoking youth and the
benefits of regulating and taxing the dreaded weed.

Wouldn't it be better to have people buy joints from the liquor
store, labelled with the THC content, quality assured, grown by a
licenced farmer, with the appropriate taxes funding something
worthwhile rather than a black market?

It's time to dust off the Report of the Senate Special Committee On
Illegal Drugs, that was published in 2002. Rather than diss the
Senate for allegedly doing nothing, let's listen to one of the many
good reports that senators have produced. Noteworthy in this report
are the findings that, "used in moderation, cannabis in itself poses
very little danger to users and to society as a whole" and that
cannabis itself was not a cause of other drug use and therefore was
not a gateway drug. The Senators also found that keeping marijuana
use illegal was not reducing its use.

Of course for heavy users, bronchitis and lung cancer come with the
smoke and although addiction is an issue, the data showed that
dependence on grass is less frequent and less severe than with
alcohol or cigarettes. Most surprising was the report's finding that
"cannabis leads to a more cautious style of driving", although
cannabis and alcohol combined is worse than the alcohol alone.

I'm not a smoker of any sort and have no intention of becoming one,
but these days we can't afford useless laws that waste taxpayers
money and benefit organized crime. I think it's time our politicians
took on the issue and come up with a law that reflects reality and
common sense.