WHERE HAVE ALL THE MORALS GONE?

There has been a lot of discussion happening recently over the legalization
of marijuana. It is very surprising how our government wants to jump into
the drug dealing business.

First marijuana homegrowers get nailed by the police for trying to run a
profitable illegal business, now the government all of a sudden decides to
look at making it legal and now wants a piece of it too. Is there something
wrong with this or what?

We were both discussing the issue and surely thought that government
revenue came into the picture. That's a no-brainer. Just look at the
government tax situation with alcohol. So for the heck of it, we decided to
call the LCBO hotline to examine the breakdown of tax revenue.

Following is an example from LCBO's 1-800-ONT-LCBO hotline on a 26-ounce
bottle of Canadian Club whisky, which should knock your socks off. The cost
of brewing was $7.39. LCBO markup (135 per cent) gives you $10.20 to add,
raising the price to $17.59. Bottle levy is 29 cents per litre multiplied
by 0.782, giving you approximately 23 cents to add. We are now up to
$17.82. But then there is more. We must add the rounded revenue to the
nearest nickel, being $17.85 in this case. And don't forget your PST at 8
per cent ($2.14) bringing it up further to $19.99 and then the GST at seven
per cent ($1.25) hitting the mark of $21.24. The total government revenue
here is 2.87 times (287 per cent) the total brewing cost to manufacture
market, sell, and profit from this product.

It is obvious to see why the government wants to jump on the gambling and
now marijuana bandwagon. Back in the old days of Prohibition the government
realized that increased profit could be made by taking over the illegal
bootlegging industries rather than being more efficient in reducing wastage
and bad spending.

Guess it's now time for this notorious government of ours to take over
another illegal industry. The Canadian government is now about to take over
the drug trafficking business.

So we ask again, where have all the morals gone? We'll tell you where they
have gone. They have been traded for tax revenue.

Louis Landry and Nicholas Ermeta Cambridge