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.
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MAP posted-by: Matt