Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jul 2013
Source: Cranbrook Daily Townsman (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Black Press
Contact:  http://www.dailytownsman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/723
Author: Barry Coulter
Cited: Sensible BC: http://www.sensiblebc.ca

MARIJUANA ACTIVIST BRINGS CAMPAIGN TO CRANBROOK

An activist pushing for the decriminalization of marijuana in British 
Columbia has received permission from Elections B.C. To launch a 
province-wide petition.

On Thursday, July 11, Dana Larsen got the go-ahead to use the 
province's unique initiative legislation to propose a law that would 
decriminalize pot by preventing police from enforcing simple 
possession laws. Larsen and his Sensible BC campaign two months to 
sign up canvassers and prepare to start collecting signatures on Sept. 9.

Larsen has immediately started touring the province to get a team in 
place, and was in Cranbrook Thursday evening, where he took some time 
to speak to the Daily Townsman.

"This is definitely an issue whose time has come," Larsen said. "But 
it is very challenging to get all the signatures we need to get on 
the ballot. We've been working on this for several months now, in 
terms of building support, getting awareness out there. We've got a 
lot of people who are very excited about this and want to make a 
difference, and we'll just have to see if we can get over the top and 
get the 400,000-odd signatures that we need.

To succeed, Larsen must collect the signatures of 10 per cent of 
registered voters in each of the province's 85 ridings by November. 
That would either force a vote in the legislature or a provincewide, 
non-binding referendum.

"It's a very difficult challenge," Larsen said. "We only have 90 days 
to collect those signatures, and we start that clock on September 9. 
So between now and then our main focus is to pre-register canvassers, 
so that we have a lot of canvassers in place to collect those 
signatures when the time comes."

B.C.'s initiative legislation, which was successfully used to kill 
the province's harmonized sales tax two years ago, allows any voter 
to bring forward proposed legislation in the form of a petition.

Larsen is expecting a broad cross-section of society to support this one.

"A lot of our volunteers don't use marijuana, they're people who just 
care about this issue," he said. "They may not happen to use it 
themselves. We do have a challenge - some people feel stigmatized, 
and are afraid to come out - they might lose their job or have issues 
if they support this cause, which is really unfortunate for a 
political cause to have some of that stigma attached to it.

"There are a lot of British Columbians who are excited about this," 
Larsen continued. "We've got several thousand people who say they 
want to volunteer. We've got a broad base of widespread support. Our 
polling shows that even a majority of Conservative Party voters in 
British Columbia support the provisions of our legislation, so our 
challenge is really an organizational one."

Larsen agrees that recent events in the United States have fuelled 
the current conversation in Canada.

"The votes to legalize in Washington and Colorado through a very 
similar ballot initiative, a referendum process, is very inspiring to 
us," he said. "Seventeen other American states have legalized medical 
marijuana in the same way, through public referendums, and although 
this issue has broad support in B.C., our political leaders don't 
seem willing to tackle it. That's what the referendum system is for. 
We do have broad support for this. So we'll just have to see how it unfolds."

Larsen's current tour, including the stop in Cranbrook, is just to 
get the volunteers and mechanics of the initiative in place.

"The HST campaign had about about 6,000 registered canvassers. We 
figure we're going to need somewhere in the same amount to really get 
this thing going. So we're inviting people to fill out the form, get 
registered as a canvasser now, so when September 9 comes you got the 
big army built and can really hit the ground running and make this 
thing a success."

Changes to provincial and federal marijuana laws would be a economic 
boon, Larsen says.

"We would save $10.5 million a year to begin with, just if we stopped 
arresting people and charging them for marijuana possession. And then 
further, we could easily bring in several hundred million dollars a 
year through some kind of a legally regulated and taxed marijuana 
system. Our initiative is to decriminalize possession. That's 
something the province can do, but we're also calling on the federal 
government to repeal marijuana prohibition so that B.C. can implement 
some kind of a regulation system - something similar to what we have 
now for alcohol and tobacco."

If a petition collects enough valid signatures, it is then sent to a 
legislative committee - which, in this case, would be dominated by 
the governing Liberal party.

The committee can either send the petition directly to the 
legislature for consideration or ask Elections BC to hold a province 
wide referendum, which would require both a majority of voters across 
the province to approve the proposal, as well as majorities in 
two-thirds of the province's ridings.

Larsen said anyone who wants to help out and become a canvasser, or 
who is looking for more information should visit the website at sensiblebc.ca .
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom