BETTER TO HAVE GROWS RUN BY HIPPIES

To the editor,

Concerning the proliferation of cannabis "grow ops" in Nelson, when
Police Chief Dan Maluta asked his officers "if it would break their
hearts not to go the Criminal Code route, and we were able to rid the
neighbourhoods of these places through other means, like through use
of the grow op bylaw," they answered, "No, absolutely not. The
ultimate goal is to get rid of the grow."

This is marvellous news, because it means the police finally support
the recommendations of the Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs,
who in 2002 concluded that the only way to rid Canadian communities
of illicit cannabis growing operations is to legally regulate the herb.

To put the problem into perspective, according to the RCMP, annual
Canadian cannabis production is roughly estimated at between 1,399
and 3,498 metric tonnes. About 50 tonnes were seized in 2007, less
than 5 per cent, less than cultivators lost to plant diseases and
pests, and less than distributors would have paid in GST if cannabis
were legal.

At best, municipal bylaws cause cultivators to move to neighbouring
jurisdictions. At worst, they cull out the least "organized" growers,
attract gangs, who prefer to sell cocaine, heroin and
methamphetamine, increase black market violence, and cause
cultivators to adopt more dangerous and destructive counter-measures,
such as the use of rented homes that they can afford to abandon and
the theft of electricity.

If all goes as planned, there may be a brief, localized scarcity of
weed, and an increase in the "street value." However, when the price
of cannabis rises, the economic incentive to grow and import rises in
tandem. Cannabis consumers substitute other drugs, primarily alcohol,
pharmaceuticals and solvents, causing addiction, violence, overdose
deaths, domestic abuse, traffic accidents and all the other social
costs associated with alcohol to rise as well.

More pragmatically, does anyone know how much the Nelson economy
depends on the cannabis industry? Can you afford to rid Nelson of
B.C.'s largest cash crop and the cost of importing pot from Castlegar
and Grand Folks? Like many police chiefs before him, Dan Maluta might
find himself looking back fondly on a time when his cannabis market
was run by non-violent, domestic hippies.

Matthew M. Elrod

Victoria, B.C.