B.C.'S BUSINESS CASE FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

I'm writing this on the day marijuana entrepreneur Marc Emery is being
taken in handcuffs to the U.S. to plead guilty for selling marijuana
seeds from his multimillion-dollar Vancouver-based mail-order business.

Leaving aside all the galling issues about U.S. legal control over a
Canadian business, the arrest of a Canadian citizen who has never
visited the U.S., the inexplicable length of his expected sentence -
five years incarceration in the U.S. for a one-month offence in Canada
- - the victimless nature of his crime and the self-defeating wounds he
inflicts on himself from incendiary pro-pot campaigning, his case
highlights the role of pot as the elephant in the B.C. economy.

A 2004 Fraser Institute study roughly estimated the B.C. marijuana
crop's value at around 2% to 4% of the province's GDP. That was before
the recession. Go to any small town in B.C., look around at the
pine-beetle kill and the shuttered mills and ask yourself what's still
selling.

As economic cutbacks continue to slice up our social infrastructure,
it's time to look more seriously at the futility of paying vast sums
to keep pot illegal: last week's Union of B.C. Municipalities motion
asking for more federal money to fight gangs is only the latest
indicator of how our widely-flaunted anti-pot laws are hurting
communities financially - as well as generating crime and disrespect
for the law. Pot sales are fuelling the franchising of Hell's Angels
subsidiaries in small towns all over the province as other economic
opportunities dry up.

Who pays and who benefits from keeping pot possession a criminal
offence? Ordinary citizens pay, in police, fire-inspection, court and
jail costs, while access to the plant stays as high as ever.

As the Fraser Institute study concluded: "The broader social question
becomes not whether we approve or disapprove of local production, but
rather who shall enjoy the spoils." The current beneficiaries are
organized criminals, small-time dealers, illegal growers, police,
lawyers and related law-enforcement industries.

Legalizing and taxing pot would immediately save money. An open letter
signed by 500 U.S. economists, including Milton Friedman, suggested
that replacing pot prohibition with taxation and regulation in the
U.S. would save $7.7 billion annually and generate $6.2 billion a year
in new revenue if legalized marijuana were taxed like alcohol or
tobacco. The Washington legislature is looking at a 2010 bill that
would reclassify possession from a crime to a civil infraction with a
$100 penalty. A legislative committee estimates a net financial gain
of $17 million a year if the bill passes.

Tobacco-like controls, regulations, age restrictions and warning
labelling would mitigate abuse. Police could cut back forces and focus
on real dangers.

There are a multitude of barriers to making this happen, not least of
which is jeopardizing our relationship with our American neighbours.
But how long are they going to hang onto anti-drug laws that have
turned their southern flank into a drug state run by warlords?
Pressure to decriminalize is very much alive south of the border. As
far back as 1972, a bipartisan Congressional commission recommended
decriminalization. Fourteen states representing a third of the U.S.
population have since decriminalized marijuana use. Cities like
Seattle have officially made adult marijuana use the "lowest
law-enforcement priority."

B.C. has an edge in the pot business. Give Emery credit for putting
Vancouver on the international map as a pot hot spot. Canada already
has more than 2,000 federally sanctioned medical-marijuana growers -
some in grow-ops near you. We have expert growers in every
municipality in the province. Just think if they could grow in
greenhouses instead of converting wood-frame homes into agricultural
fire traps.

The current economic crisis adds financial punch to the already strong
arguments for ending this harmful charade and spending our scarce
public dollars on creating benefits, not breeding crime.