IT'S TIME TO TALK POT

It's time for the conversation to begin.

A group of B.C. public health officers has joined a growing coalition
of policy leaders urging the legalization and taxation of marijuana.

The Health Officers Council of B.C. voted to endorse Stop the
Violence B.C. and called for regulation of illegal substances like
marijuana to reduce the harm from substance use and the unintended
consequences of government policies.

"The Health Officer's Council and other experts are not saying that
marijuana should be legalized and taxed because it is safe," said Dr.
Paul Hasselback, a Vancouver Island medical health officer who chairs
the council.

"We are saying that proven public health approaches should be used to
constrain its use. There is now more danger to the public's health in
perpetuating a market driven by criminal activity."

The coalition argues prohibition has failed and enforcement has
little impact on drug use, merely fueling the $7-billion illegal pot
industry that experts say is directly linked to the spike in
gang-related killings since 1997.

A report released by Stop the Violence says teens find it easy to buy
marijuana and pot use among them is up considerably since the 1990s,
despite heavy spending on drug enforcement.

"By every metric, this policy is failing to meet its objectives,"
said Dr. Evan Wood, a Vancouver doctor and founder of the coalition.

By regulating the market, he said, the distribution and use of
marijuana would be more controlled and would also eliminate organized
crime from the equation.

It would also provide a source of tax revenue in the hundreds of
millions, he added.

Cannabis arrests in Canada climbed from 39,000 in 1990 to more than
65,000 in 2009, according to the coalition.

An estimated 27 per cent of young B.C. residents aged 15-24 used pot
at least once in 2008, according to one poll.

Four former Vancouver mayors have also backed the coalition. Earlier
this year the Prince George Chamber of Commerce put forward a motion
at the B.C. Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting calling for
the legalization of marijuana. Regrettably, that motion was defeated.

The now-defunct Progress Board of B.C. made a similar call years ago.

However, it is not on the agenda of any level of government. Here in
Prince George there has been much hand-wringing over once again
carrying the mantle of Canada's most dangerous city, yet legalization
of marijuana has not been a topic of any of our crime reduction strategies.

The provincial government doesn't have enough sitting days to have a
meaningful debate about anything anymore and debating legalizing
marijuana certainly isn't on their radar.

The federal government, hell-bent on building more prisons and
finding people to put in them, don't want to debate the issue either.

And they won't unless the public demands it.

More and more groups and organizations are calling for something to
be done because it is obvious that what we are doing now isn't
working . in fact we are failing miserably.

Whether legalization of marijuana is the answer or the outcome
doesn't really matter.

What matters is that governments, at all levels, start the
conversation. The public is increasingly demanding something be done.
It's time our governments actually listened, and did something.