Pubdate: Fri, 27 Apr 2012
Source: North Shore News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 North Shore News
Contact:  http://www.nsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/311
Author: Benjamin Alldritt
Cited: Stop the Violence BC: http://stoptheviolencebc.org/

CITY COUNCIL CALLS FOR POT REGULATION

Unanimous Motion Follows Stop the Violence B.C. Presentation

MARIJUANA prohibition has "failed miserably," says the City of North 
Vancouver's council, who voted unanimously Monday to call for 
decriminalization and regulation of the drug.

"It's an issue whose time has come," said Coun. Rod Clark. "It's a 
fundamental question for our society. It's now time to embrace a 
science-based solution, one that recognizes the failures of 
prohibition and the restrictions of the past."

The vote followed an extensive presentation from Dr. Evan Wood, a 
practising St. Paul's Hospital physician as well a professor and 
researcher at the UBC faculty of medicine. He was invited to council 
to represent the Stop the Violence B.C. coalition.

"We include public health physicians, experts in addiction, 
criminology, other academic disciplines from across B.C.'s largest 
universities, current and former police officers, former Supreme Court

justices, federal prosecutors and former attorneys general," Wood 
said. The coalition also lists several former chief coroners, several 
former mayors of Vancouver, a former premier and a senator among its members.

Wood opened by displaying a number of recent newspaper headlines 
linking the drug trade to deadly violence in the Lower Mainland.

"I could have just as easily shown headlines from the North Shore, 
with regular grow-op busts and other activities on the North Shore. 
We've all seen headlines like this," he said.

According to the Fraser Institute, marijuana cultivation in B.C. is 
worth about $7 billion annually. Wood displayed several graphs 
showing the price and potency of various substances over the past 
three decades, during which the annual American drug control budget 
has swollen from $3.68 billion to more than $23 billion.

"What you would expect is that the price would go up as you reduce 
supply and the potency would go down because you're cutting off the 
supply," Wood said.

"What you see is the exact opposite. The price of heroin has gone 
down over time, and not because the quality of the heroin is worse, 
actually the potency has gone up dramatically. This is U.S. 
government data. With marijuana the story is the same: the price has 
gone down dramatically because of how exceptional the organized crime 
groups have been at distributing the drug and the potency has gone up 
exceptionally. Simply put, the war on drugs has not achieved its 
stated objectives."

What's more, Wood said, a "very rigorous" systematic review conducted 
by senior researchers at UBC and McMaster University concluded that 
"there is no study that has ever concluded that drug law enforcement 
reduces violence and there is a whole literature describing how 
taking out key players from the drug market creates economic 
opportunity. In the absence of lawyers and other ways to resolve 
disputes, you have turf wars and people fighting to gain market share."

Wood said he himself has treated patients with gunshot wounds 
following drug-related disputes. He went on to show 
pro-decriminalization editorials from the Vancouver Sun, the 
Province, Business in Vancouver, the Globe and Mail and the North 
Shore News. His presentation was warmly received at the Vancouver 
Board of Trade, he said.

Several polls indicate a large majority of B.C. residents support 
decriminalization, even among Conservative voters. "I'm unaware of 
any other issue that 77 per cent of British Columbians can agree on. 
The politicians have clearly fallen behind on this issue," Wood said.

As well as highlighting the failure of prohibition to reduce the 
supply of marijuana, Wood said his group is "trying to help the 
public understand that all of the issues related to the marijuana 
industry - the grow-ops, the hydro theft, the home invasions, the 
gang activity - all of this is an expected natural consequence of 
marijuana prohibition, just as those things emerged during alcohol 
prohibition."

Wood described Stop the Violence as "a very strong anti-drug group," 
but said they do not advocate full legalization that would lead to 
advertising and corporate involvement. Instead, he said there is a 
"sweet spot."

"There is a middle ground, where we have had great success with 
alcohol and tobacco. The success is because of the regulatory tools 
we can employ because tobacco is legal." Taxation, public education 
and a range of other regulations like advertising restrictions have 
been effective at pushing down tobacco use, Wood said.

"We have a violent, unregulated market whose goal is profit. That's 
why it's sold at high schools. Regulatory tools can move us to a 
regulated market whose goal is public health."

Coun. Guy Heywood asked Wood what decriminalization would look like 
in practice, and how it would affect Canada's relationship with the 
United States.

"It can't happen where the law changes and it's just like liquor 
stores and available everywhere and that's the new reality," Wood 
replied. "We need to go forward with very controlled pilot studies 
looking at the impacts in terms of public nuisance, who's using it, 
money laundering and other opportunities that may emerge. . . . In 
the United States they are actually way ahead of us now. Sixteen 
states have legalized medical marijuana, which is a separate issue. 
Fourteen states have decriminalized marijuana."

To take the "what if" argument to its natural conclusion, said Wood, 
"implies that we are somehow protecting ourselves by giving organized 
crime $7 billion a year and allowing them to import cocaine and guns 
with that."

Coun. Craig Keating asked Wood for his views on the recent 
Conservative crime bill.

The doctor said his group is avoiding taking any partisan positions, 
and added that there are items in the wide-ranging omnibus bill that 
most people can support. But Wood did speak in general terms about 
mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession.

"Economists and businesspeople are speaking up about this issue 
increasingly because they understand markets. . . . Let's say you get 
rid of half of the growops by locking up people for a mandatory 
minimum sentence, at a cost to the taxpayer. That would have the 
perverse effect of driving up the price and incentivising more people 
to get into the market. That's why mandatory minimum sentences have 
been so ineffective and harmful to communities and harmful to 
taxpayers. In California they spend more on prisons than they do on 
post-secondary education. It's been a total disaster there."

Mayor Darrell Mussatto praised Wood as an "extremely well respected" 
scholar and thanked him for his presentation. "Making decisions based 
on evidence is the way we need to go, not on emotion or past 
experiences," Mussatto said. "We need to ask these tough questions 
and I put my name forward to sign with the coalition as mayor of the city."

Council unanimously endorsed a suggested Stop the Violence motion and 
will forward it to the Union of B.C. Municipalities.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom