BILL C-15 MEANS BIG HIT TO B.C. BUDGET

Liberal senator Larry Campbell claims that Bill C-15 could cost B.C.
taxpayers tens of millions in incarceration fees if the Conservative
legislation seeking mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences becomes law.

"Provincially, I think it could be $30 or $40 million out of the
provincial budget for putting people in jail," Campbell told the
Straight by phone. "There was a study that suggested it could be up
to 1,000 more inmates a year, so figure it out from there."

Campbell, who is a member of the Senate committee on legal and
constitutional affairs, dismissed Bill C-15 outright.

"I think this bill is stupid," Campbell said in a committee meeting
on December 2. "Marijuana should not be in this bill. It is here
simply because we have not recognized that marijuana is a lot
healthier than OxyContin or Percocet, which are commonly used."

However, Jacob Hunter, policy director of the Beyond Prohibition
Foundation, told the Straight, "Because of Senate amendments, if a
grower is in a home that they own, they can grow up to 200 plants and
not face a mandatory minimum [sentence]. If they are renting,
however, and even if they are a medicinal grower, [being found with]
one plant is a nine-month mandatory minimum."

Campbell told the Straight he had to be "realistic" with regard to
amendments to the bill, adding that at least the Senate had amended
earlier language in Bill C-15 that would have meant a six-month
prison sentence for growers of "200 plants or less".

"In my world, there would have been no minimums," Campbell said. "In
my world, if there is a low amount [of plants], a judge decides,
based on the evidence and the circumstances, if someone is guilty or
not guilty and what the penalty should be."

Campbell, like other opponents of Bill C-15, said criminal gangs will
continue to operate in the profitable marijuana industry.

"Someone said it was [worth] $7 to $8 billion a year in B.C.," he
said. "None of that's taxed; it's all grey market. What are we doing?
Does it make sense to anybody? Nobody came before our committee that
was able to say that marijuana would be, for instance, like a heroin
or a cocaine drug. Nobody was able to definitively say that minimum
sentences would work."

MPs will vote on the amended legislation in January, when Parliament
is scheduled to reconvene.