COULD LEGAL CALIFORNIA POT HURT CANADIAN ECONOMY?

A looming referendum in California on whether to legalize marijuana
has fuelled a debate among bloggers and pundits over this question:
Could legalization in the United States cripple the Canadian economy?

In a column on the Guardian's website this week, B.C. writer Douglas
Haddow writes that a move to legalization would be "devastating to the
Canadian economy, halting the flow of billions of dollars from the
U.S. into Canada."

B.C. marijuana activist Marc Emery - the self-styled "Prince of Pot"
who is awaiting sentencing in the U.S. for distributing cannabis seeds
- - recently told a Vancouver indie website that "the homegrown market
will evaporate."

Are they just blowing smoke? Not necessarily, some academics
say.

Marijuana production generates at least $3 to $4 billion in B.C. alone
- - due, in large part, to heavy demand from pot heads south of the
border, said Darryl Plecas a criminology professor at the University
of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C.

Plecas said he estimates that about 70 per cent of all marijuana
produced in B.C. is sent to the U.S. and much of it goes to California.

"(Producers) are probably frantically looking where they can ship it
to" besides California, he said.

Eugene Oscapella, a criminology lecturer at the University of Ottawa
and founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, said
there is no doubt that if California legalizes marijuana, producers
there will be able to sell the product more cheaply - thus making it
difficult for producers here to compete and driving some out of business.

"Increased availability for a lesser price in that country will have
an effect on suppliers in Canada," he said.

Of particular concern, he said, are the mom-and-pop producers in rural
parts of B.C. who turned to marijuana as a way to make ends meet after
the forest industry declined.

Other observers, however, are more circumspect about how crippling
legalization would be for Canadian producers, pointing out that "B.C.
Bud" still enjoys a reputation in many circles as "the Rolls-Royce" of
marijuana and that there are many other U.S. states - besides
California - that covet Canadian-grown marijuana.

Also, Mexico, which exports far more pot to California than Canada,
would probably be stung a lot harder, they say.

Even as the Canadian dollar has appreciated - making Canadiangrown
marijuana much more expensive for Americans to buy - the industry has
continued to thrive, said Stephen Easton, a professor of economics at
Simon Fraser University in B.C. and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

"It's a very resilient industry and very adaptive," he
said.

Chuck Doucette, a retired RCMP staff sergeant who specialized in drug
enforcement, adds the blackmarket exchange of Canadian marijuana for
U.S. cash and cocaine is so "thoroughly entrenched" that it is
unlikely that those lines will disappear overnight.

The California marijuana initiative is headed to a vote in November.
Even if it passes, it is likely that it will go through a series of
court challenges, experts say.

But opponents of legalization say widespread use of marijuana could
lead to use of more dangerous drugs, worsen addiction problems and
send mixed messages to young people about drug use.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has repeatedly
said it has no intention of decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana.