Pubdate: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 Source: National Post (Canada) Copyright: 2014 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286 Page: A10 FREEING THE WEED ... . and using the American experience to get it right One of the stranger lines of attack the federal Conservatives have used in their efforts to define Justin Trudeau as unfit for office, is the notion that he "wants marijuana in local stores, just like alcohol and cigarettes." Perhaps this strikes fear in the hearts of the nation's soccer parents, but it doesn't survive much logical scrutiny. It's true that Mr. Trudeau supports legalizing marijuana. Accepting that, where else would it be sold but "local stores" of some kind? And what other products would make better analogues than cigarettes and alcohol? Breakfast cereal? Power tools? Examples of how this could work begin operating this morning, just a half hour drive from the Canada U.S. border, in Bellingham, Wash., where two of the state's 24 marijuana retailers are scheduled to open their doors. The state Liquor Control Board inspects the premises. It hands out the licences. It keeps an electronic registry of the product, so it can be traced. It requires high-definition cameras to record all comings and goings at the stores. It prohibits children from the premises outright. The legal age is 21, just like with alcohol, and people are legally allowed to buy and possess up to one ounce of weed - though they can't smoke it anywhere in public view. So there you have it: A North American government has legalized and regulated marijuana in a careful, conservative way. And it's not even the first. Effective Jan. 1, Colorado implemented a similar system, but with a few twists: Non-residents are not allowed to buy as much as locals, and whereas Washington prohibits personal cultivation, Colorado allows people to grow as many as six marijuana plants and to give as much as an ounce away as a gift. (To sell, of course, they need a licence.) This newspaper has always advocated liberalizing Canada's marijuana laws. The harms associated with marijuana use, while real, are hardly comparable to those of alcohol and tobacco. It costs the justice system a huge amount of money, and the current prohibitionist regime simply doesn't work very well: While the rate of cannabis use among 15-to 24-year-olds has dropped in recent years, it's difficult to attribute that to some kind of clampdown, considering the rate of alcohol use fell too. Around the world, many countries with relatively liberal laws enjoy much lower rate of marijuana use among youth. It's important not to succumb to magic thinking. Neither decriminalization nor legalization and regulation is a magic bullet for marijuana related harms or for keeping pot out of kids' hands: The average age at which Canadians reported first using marijuana, 16, is the same age at which they report first using alcohol. They probably didn't buy it from an "alcohol dealer." But leaving this huge, lucrative, relatively harmless industry to the criminals must be the worst way to go about it. For this reason, even skeptics should be thankful for the United States taking the lead. Including Washington and Colorado, roughly 120 million Americans currently live in states where penny-ante marijuana has been decriminalized, at the very least. They provide Canada with a sort of living laboratory. Too often, Ottawa legislates with blinders on, based mostly on personal preference - both ideological and political. Here we have a chance to study what works and what doesn't: Will marijuana use go up in Colorado and Washington? Will children find it harder to procure? Will associated harms increase? Will the black market adapt, or collapse? Are the tax revenues as predicted? Is there any evidence of increased drug-impaired driving? If this seems like advice only for Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, recall that in March, Justice Minister Peter MacKay mused about giving police the option to deal with small-scale marijuana possession "much like the treatment of open liquor," and indicated Prime Minister Stephen Harper was open to the idea. A decade ago, that's more or less what the Liberals called decriminalization and the Canadian Alliance called insanity. Progress comes awfully slowly in Canada. But the future prime minister who finally decides to tackle this issue will have a lot of evidence at his or her disposal. It might be years before we free the weed, but when we do, we should at least be able to get it right. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt