Pubdate: Tue, 21 Feb 2012
Source: Parksville Qualicum Beach News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Black Press
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/5n7vJzqp
Website: http://drugsense.org/url/zLXtMKI5
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1361

LOBBYING FOR POT

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: Richard R Smith Jr.