Pubdate: Thu, 16 Feb 2012
Source: Nanaimo News Bulletin (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012, BC Newspaper Group
Contact:  http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/948
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

LEGALIZATION'S TIME HAS COME

With former attorneys general, ex-municipal mayors and a host of 
medical health officers all advocating for the legalization of 
marijuana, the public should start to wonder what politicians are 
smoking to make inaction seem like the right decision.

Former B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant and his colleagues are the 
latest to lobby the province for reforms to its marijuana laws by 
ending prohibition on B.C.'s unofficial cash crop.

Like prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression made 
millionaires out of bootleggers and gangsters, marijuana laws 
financially benefit both organized crime and petty criminals, while 
punishing taxpaying, law-abiding citizens for inhaling in the privacy 
of their homes.

The framework for restriction, regulation and taxation of marijuana 
exists, through our extensive alcohol and tobacco legislation. 
Impairment laws currently apply to marijuana.

The federal Conservative government wants to increase the minimum 
penalty for pot offences, yet B.C.'s court system faces such a 
backlog that the vast majority of those charges would be dismissed 
before ever reaching court.

Legalizing - and regulating - marijuana would ease that court burden, 
erasing minor drug possession charges to free up court time for 
serious offences, such as drunk driving. It would also impact the 
international drug trade, which sees harder drugs cross the border in 
exchange for B.C. marijuana.

Where the face of the argument for legalization was once a grungy, 
hippie-ish fellow sparking a spliff, the movement now has top medical 
professionals, former municipal leaders and provincial ministers 
cutting through the haze with a clean image and a clear-cut case.

B.C. has the opportunity to show leadership on a national scale by 
taking the profits of crime and returning it to society.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom