LEGALIZE IT, TAX IT, FORGET ABOUT IT

Sechelt - The provincial budget has come down and the message is
clear: brace for deficit spending. It's not the spending I'm worried
about so much as I am paying for it later.

Our neighbour three doors down, California, is an even worse financial
spot than we are. So much so Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office is
issuing IOUs to state employees instead of pay cheques and has opened
up a Twitter page to collect ideas from the public on how the
government can raise money.

Desperate times.

The response was clear, though. "Legalize, regulate and tax
marijuana," was one of the most common responses.

Desperate measures.

But financial desperation shouldn't be the only criteria to make
governments re-evaluate their stances on pot.

The lose-lose situation we are now in when it comes to drug
enforcement is only benefiting organized crime groups. They enjoy a
monopoly they are willing to fight and kill for.

Numerous polls, including one conducted in May by Angus Reid
Strategies, found the majority of British Columbians would like to see
marijuana legalized and taxed.

This position seems to be held by academics as well. Free market
economists like Simon Fraser University's (SFU) Stephen Easton have
written detailed papers on how legalization can work and what we might
expect.

Marijuana is also recognized by numerous provincial attorneys general
as a currency that is often produced here and traded straight up for
guns and cocaine south of the border.

SFU criminologist Neil Boyd has spoken out against prohibition in its
current form and has stated numerous times and numerous ways how we'd
be better off with legalization, and the gangs would be worse off.

Even our own medical health officer, Paul Martiquet, published a
column in Coast Reporter in April stating the Health Officers' Council
of B.C. was taking up the anti-prohibition cause relating to all
drugs. The solution cannot be a B.C.-specific one, though, as changing
the criminal code is a federal responsibility.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that changing the law
would put Canada in a mighty awkward position with the United States,
which is nowhere near ready to look at even decriminalization. It's a
staggering and bold task, but it can be done. It's just going to take
some political will and gumption.

It's starting to smell like there's going to be another federal
election this fall, and if there is, you can bet the economy is going
to be issue number one.

As revenues are down, deficits are up and service cuts are on the way,
the message from the governments to their ministries and departments
on keeping the lights on is getting repetitive: "Be creative."

Here's a creative thought. Stop pouring funding into law enforcement,
courts and corrections to enforce drug laws while organized crime
groups' profits are in the hundreds of millions and shootings across
the Lower Mainland help the gangs carve out their territories.

It's time to stop the nervous nail-biting and myopic prohibition of
marijuana. Undercut the criminal economy, lessen the burden on the
justice system, and install a regulated and lucrative legalized system
for the benefit of all.