Pubdate: Fri, 15 May 2009 Source: DrugSense Weekly (DSW) Website: http://www.drugsense.org LETTER OF THE WEEK EVIDENCE SUGGESTS DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA By TG Storey Dear Editor: I don't use marijuana ( cannabis ). Therefore, from a consumption perspective, I have no interest whether or not it is ever legalized or decriminalized. As a Canadian taxpayer, though, I do care. I believe that our rate of income taxation is much too high and that our prohibition of cannabis contributes both directly and indirectly to that rate. On this basis, and also because I believe that adults should be the sole judge of what they put into their bodies, I think that marijuana should be decriminalized and legitimized in the same way that alcohol is now. No one knows just how big the cannabis industry is in Canada, other than it's BIG. One estimate of its size near the beginning of the century was about $4 billion annually. A Forbes magazine article from 2003 suggested that British Columbia alone might produce more than that. Four billion dollars is about what drug store giant Shopper's Drug Mart tallied in gross revenues in 2002. One important difference between that company and the Canadian marijuana industry is that Shopper's Drug Mart reportedly paid more than $130 million in income taxes that year. The underground marijuana industry paid none. Cannabis was also exempt from the taxes, including GST, that are paid on products like tobacco and alcohol. In addition to missing out on substantial tax revenues, Canadian taxpayers pay hundreds of millions of dollars every year in an attempt to enforce our marijuana laws and, in so doing, divert valuable police resources from other concerns. Does our prohibition of marijuana work? Obviously not, if it spawns a $4 billion a year underground industry. There are even marijuana grow houses springing up here in Cochrane. In 2006, Canada had the highest per capita marijuana use of any industrialized country. The 2007 United Nations World Drug Report indicates that in the previous year 16.8 per cent of Canadians between ages 15 and 64 had used marijuana. That's a million Canadians. But at least we're keeping it out of the hands of kids! Well no, actually, we are not. The same United Nations report indicates that marijuana use by Canadian young people is widespread. For example, in 2005 an estimated 24.4 per cent of Ontario students in Grades 7 through 11 used marijuana. It's strange how our laws work in that regard. In the 1960s Toronto I, as a teenager, observed that marijuana, a strictly illegal drug, was more accessible to people my age than was alcohol, a decriminalized but regulated drug. Cannabis was available through contacts at school, at church and even Boy Scouts. Bootleggers of alcohol were harder to find. Support for at least the partial decriminalization of marijuana is found in some unlikely places. One such place is the 2002 Senate Special Committee Summary Report on Illegal Drugs. It recommends that "the government of Canada amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to create a criminal exemption scheme. This legislation should stipulate the conditions for obtaining licenses as well as for producing and selling cannabis; criminal penalties for illegal trafficking and export; and the preservation of criminal penalties for all activities falling outside the scope of the exemption scheme." The report is a real eye-opener. Some other interesting highlights are as follows: * Cannabis itself is not a cause of other drug use. * Cannabis itself is not a cause of delinquency and crime. * Physical dependency on cannabis is virtually non-existent. * Psychological dependency is moderate and is certainly lower than for nicotine or alcohol. * Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving. * The prohibition of cannabis does not bring about the desired reduction in cannabis consumption. * Over 20,000 Canadians are arrested each year for cannabis possession. * The continued prohibition of cannabis jeopardizes the health and well-being of Canadians much more than does the substance itself or the regulated marketing of the substance. To believe that marijuana is harmless, however, is naive. The Senate report outlines numerous negative consequences of using it as does every drug pamphlet you read. For that and other reasons the use of cannabis is generally a poor life choice and a misuse of one's time and money. The same applies to smoking and excessive alcohol use. The fact of the matter, however, is that marijuana is here in a big way and we must deal with it. To date we've done that rather expensively and ineffectively. A new approach is needed. According to Angus Reid polls conducted in 2007 and 2008, a majority of Canadians believe that marijuana should be legalized. I do not entirely agree. To me the term "legalization" suggests the removal of all restrictions. I suggest instead that we decriminalize cannabis, legitimize it, tax it and sell it under government control to adults at prices low enough to compete with the $4 billion-plus underground marijuana industry and put that industry out of business. There would still be government oversight, enforcement and control but criminal sanctions for possession of cannabis for personal use would disappear. And as is the case with tobacco, advertising of cannabis would be prohibited. The tax revenues gained on the legitimate sale of cannabis and the money saved on ineffective enforcement efforts could finance drug education programs in our schools to hammer an anti-drug message into students from their first day of kindergarten to their last year of college. In a generation, the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and a host of other drugs would be firmly ingrained in the minds of young people. Stupidity relative to the use of drugs cannot be legislated out of existence. We can, however, eliminate ignorance through education. Armed with knowledge of drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, people can make informed, intelligent choices. And who knows, drug use just might decrease. TG Storey Pubdate: Wed, 06 May 2009 Source: Cochrane Eagle (CN AB) - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake