LETTER OF THE WEEK

EVIDENCE SUGGESTS DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA

By TG Storey

Dear Editor:

I don't use marijuana ( cannabis ). Therefore, from a consumption
perspective, I have no interest whether or not it is ever legalized
or decriminalized.

As a Canadian taxpayer, though, I do care. I believe that our rate of
income taxation is much too high and that our prohibition of cannabis
contributes both directly and indirectly to that rate.

On this basis, and also because I believe that adults should be the
sole judge of what they put into their bodies, I think that marijuana
should be decriminalized and legitimized in the same way that alcohol is now.

No one knows just how big the cannabis industry is in Canada, other
than it's BIG. One estimate of its size near the beginning of the
century was about $4 billion annually. A Forbes magazine article
from 2003 suggested that British Columbia alone might produce more than that.

Four billion dollars is about what drug store giant Shopper's Drug
Mart tallied in gross revenues in 2002.

One important difference between that company and the Canadian
marijuana industry is that Shopper's Drug Mart reportedly paid more
than $130 million in income taxes that year.

The underground marijuana industry paid none.

Cannabis was also exempt from the taxes, including GST, that are paid
on products like tobacco and alcohol.

In addition to missing out on substantial tax revenues, Canadian
taxpayers pay hundreds of millions of dollars every year in an
attempt to enforce our marijuana laws and, in so doing, divert
valuable police resources from other concerns.

Does our prohibition of marijuana work? Obviously not, if it spawns a
$4 billion a year underground industry. There are even marijuana grow
houses springing up here in Cochrane.

In 2006, Canada had the highest per capita marijuana use of any
industrialized country. The 2007 United Nations World Drug Report
indicates that in the previous year 16.8 per cent of Canadians
between ages 15 and 64 had used marijuana.

That's a million Canadians.

But at least we're keeping it out of the hands of kids!

Well no, actually, we are not. The same United Nations report
indicates that marijuana use by Canadian young people is widespread.
For example, in 2005 an estimated 24.4 per cent of Ontario students
in Grades 7 through 11 used marijuana.

It's strange how our laws work in that regard. In the 1960s Toronto
I, as a teenager, observed that marijuana, a strictly illegal drug,
was more accessible to people my age than was alcohol, a
decriminalized but regulated drug. Cannabis was available through
contacts at school, at church and even Boy Scouts. Bootleggers of
alcohol were harder to find.

Support for at least the partial decriminalization of marijuana is
found in some unlikely places. One such place is the 2002 Senate
Special Committee Summary Report on Illegal Drugs. It recommends that
"the government of Canada amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act to create a criminal exemption scheme.

This legislation should stipulate the conditions for obtaining
licenses as well as for producing and selling cannabis; criminal
penalties for illegal trafficking and export; and the preservation of
criminal penalties for all activities falling outside the scope of
the exemption scheme."

The report is a real eye-opener. Some other interesting highlights
are as follows:

* Cannabis itself is not a cause of other drug use.

* Cannabis itself is not a cause of delinquency and crime.

* Physical dependency on cannabis is virtually non-existent.

* Psychological dependency is moderate and is certainly lower than
for nicotine or alcohol.

* Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the
skills involved in automobile driving.

* The prohibition of cannabis does not bring about the desired
reduction in cannabis consumption.

* Over 20,000 Canadians are arrested each year for cannabis possession.

* The continued prohibition of cannabis jeopardizes the health and
well-being of Canadians much more than does the substance itself or
the regulated marketing of the substance.

To believe that marijuana is harmless, however, is naive.

The Senate report outlines numerous negative consequences of using it
as does every drug pamphlet you read. For that and other reasons the
use of cannabis is generally a poor life choice and a misuse of one's
time and money.

The same applies to smoking and excessive alcohol use.

The fact of the matter, however, is that marijuana is here in a big
way and we must deal with it. To date we've done that rather
expensively and ineffectively. A new approach is needed.

According to Angus Reid polls conducted in 2007 and 2008, a majority
of Canadians believe that marijuana should be legalized.

I do not entirely agree. To me the term "legalization" suggests the
removal of all restrictions.

I suggest instead that we decriminalize cannabis, legitimize it, tax
it and sell it under government control to adults at prices low
enough to compete with the $4 billion-plus underground marijuana
industry and put that industry out of business.

There would still be government oversight, enforcement and control
but criminal sanctions for possession of cannabis for personal use
would disappear. And as is the case with tobacco, advertising of
cannabis would be prohibited.

The tax revenues gained on the legitimate sale of cannabis and the
money saved on ineffective enforcement efforts could finance drug
education programs in our schools to hammer an anti-drug message into
students from their first day of kindergarten to their last year of college.

In a generation, the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and a host
of other drugs would be firmly ingrained in the minds of young people.

Stupidity relative to the use of drugs cannot be legislated out of existence.

We can, however, eliminate ignorance through education. Armed with
knowledge of drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, people can make
informed, intelligent choices.

And who knows, drug use just might decrease.

TG Storey

Pubdate: Wed, 06 May 2009

Source: Cochrane Eagle (CN AB)