PROHIBITION NOT THE ANSWER

Unlike Bill Clinton, I did inhale. Like millions of other Canadians, I have
used marijuana. Quite often, in my youth.

Haven't really touched the stuff for quite some time, an absence reached
not due to any reasons of moral, legal or health concerns.

Rather, smoking a joint tends to make me sleepy. Today, I'd much rather
have a Sleeman's.

Many people I know still prefer smoking to drinking. And it is these people
- - as successful and "normal" as the person who enjoys a scotch and water
after dinner - who continue to be labelled "criminals" because they prefer
a drug deemed illegal over a far more dangerous drug deemed legal.

And in the last couple of weeks, police departments in Abbotsford, Surrey,
Richmond are catching up with Chilliwack in their efforts to bust grow-ops.

What this expensive police clampdown will accomplish, of course, is higher
demand for the product, increased profit for the criminals who mass produce
marijuana and more violence as the payoff continues to outweigh the risk.

This was true during the mistake of alcohol prohibition last century, and
it remains true today.

Alcohol is legal and regulated by the government, which makes a mint on
taxation.

Marijuana is illegal and unregulated, leading to a dangerous black market
where billions of dollars of profit are not taxed.

According to Forbes magazine, the pot industry in B.C. takes in up to $7
billion (U.S.) per year.

In 2002, the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs called for the
legalization of marijuana, noting that prohibition of marijuana has done
little to reduce its use despite vast amounts of money spent on law
enforcement, that marijuana is not a gateway to harder drugs like cocaine
and heroin, that marijuana is not generally addictive (less than 10 per
cent of users become addicted) and that pot is less harmful than alcohol.

Consider that a teenager in the Fraser Valley can buy a bag of pot with
ease, but would be hard-pressed to buy a case of beer without convincing an
adult to bootleg for them.

Consider that alcohol legalization has not resulted in a flurry of homemade
stills or constant rum-running across the border.

The very fact that marijuana is illegal is the reason organized crime,
violence and sky-high prices are part of the equation.

Add to that electrocutions (as happened in Langley last week, killing a
44-year-old man who was tending his grow operation) and fires (caused when
growers mess with hydro connections), and one has to wonder why the
powers-that-be cannot see that legalization is the answer that makes most
sense for Canada's 1.5 million recreational users of pot (as cited by the
Canadian Medical Association) who manage to indulge without creating
anywhere near the problems caused by alcohol usage.

Opponents of liberalizing pot laws may point to stats that show that total
drug offences increased for the ninth straight year in 2002. However, the
Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics says that last year, three in four
drug incidents were cannabis offences, most of which were for simple
possession.

So the "increase" in drug offences are not necessarily related to the drugs
viewed by most as the "hard" variety - heroin and cocaine - the ones
associated with addiction and the related spike in property crime, where
hypes commit all sorts of petty crime, and worse, to feed their habit.

In short, you will not see a regular or casual marijuana user twitching on
the corner, itching madly for a fix and eyeing the contents of your parked
car as a means to an end.

And there was Rich Coleman, the province's solicitor general and advocate
of the abysmal "war on drugs" failure of Ronald Reagan-era America, vowing
on talk radio last week to yet again get tougher on grow operations, and
trotting out the timeworn fallacy that marijuana grown in B.C. is being
traded "pound for pound" for cocaine in the U.S.

Notwithstanding there appears to be no concrete proof this is happening,
the economics of such an arrangement make no sense. Cocaine, unlike
marijuana, is very much a climate-dependent drug.

There is much talk about B.C. bud being extremely potent, thus making it
more expensive on the street. Truth is, one can grow so-called "B.C. bud"
anywhere in the world with proper hydroponic equipment and rudimentary
know-how. Indeed, there are more than a few people in this province making
huge amounts of money selling marijuana seeds via the Internet.

But good quality pot is not the exclusive domain of Lotus Land. Law
enforcement agencies in regions as diverse as Alaska, New Jersey and
Mississippi are citing high THC levels in marijuana grown in their states.
The reality is that cocaine remains far more expensive than marijuana, even
in the U.S.

Peruse the U.S. Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center's
stats on the matter: The Justice Department states that in California,
decent quality cocaine sells about $17,000 per kilogram, in multikilogram
wholesale exchanges. The price per kilogram hits the $20,000-plus mark when
sold in smaller quantities.

Marijuana from B.C. sells for about $13,000 per kilogram, as does the best
California variety.

In New Jersey, the Justice Department notes that cocaine sells for between
$22,000 and $34,000 per kilogram, while marijuana fetches between $1,300
and $6,600 per kilogram.

In between lies Oklahoma, where in Tulsa the Justice Department says
cocaine sells for between $14,000 and $24,000 per kilogram, while locally
grown marijuana - described by the feds as "high quality" bud - commands
about $4,400 per kilogram (the so-called "commercial" strain must be
inferior, as it sells for between $1,300 and $2,500 per kilogram).

Why should we care? Because the "pound for pound" mantra, coupled with the
repeated references to organized crime's involvement in the lucrative
marijuana crop in B.C., only serve to mislead the public.

Here's another misleading argument being used more and more by Coleman and
others. He pointed to Whatcom County and noted that the U.S. county south
of the Lower Mainland has busted few marijuana grow operations, while the
plantations thrive north of the 49th.

Coleman credited the dearth of grow-ops to tough laws in Washington state
that call for minimum sentences of three months in jail for those convicted
of growing dope.

What Coleman and others don't mention is the fact that Washington state is
fighting a scourge infinitely worse than the benign plant that is
marijuana.. In Whatcom County and elsewhere in the Evergreen State, meth
labs are the problem, with the state ranking first in the nation in mobile
meth labs, second in total meth labs and third in meth usage.

In the first half of this year, Whatcom County - that near marijuana-free
county that so pleases Coleman - saw 30 meth labs busted.

"It's huge here," Jeff Parks of the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office told
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this month. "It's on the top of our list in
what we think is a crisis in the making."

Considering what methamphetamine, a stimulant, can do to a person - make
them angry, hostile and violent and cause convulsions and body tremors -
and considering that, unlike pot, it is highly addictive, perhaps our pot
"problem" is preferable to the nightmare down south.