Pubdate: Tue, 27 Oct 2015
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Jerry Agar
Page: 15

GOVERNMENT WILL SCREW UP LEGAL POT

Now that prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau has a majority
government many people are excited about the possibility of legalized
marijuana.

You might eagerly anticipate a legal toke, but you're going to hate
how the government will manage it, assuming pot is handled the same
way as booze is in this province.

Indeed, pot may well fall under the jurisdiction of the Marijuana
Control Board of Ontario (MCBO), like the LCBO, and The J-Store, like
The Beer Store.

At the MCBO, as with the LCBO, prices will greatly exceed what you
would pay for a baggie in Buffalo, NY once they legalize it there, as
they probably will.

Currently, New York has decriminalized marijuana, so long as it is out
of public view, and the use of both recreational and medicinal
marijuana has been legalized in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

At The J-Store, as at The Beer Store, you'll line up at a counter next
to pictures of the product while a guy takes orders and disappears
into or calls to the back to get the product.

The buying experience will only be marginally different than
approaching a dealer on the street.

The price will be the same at the MCBO and The J-Store, because as
with alcohol in this province, legal price fixing will be part of the
arrangement.

Much of the cost of the fix will be with regard to
taxes.

Governments will impose very high taxes on getting high using pot,
just as they do for booze.

Many people believe legalizing marijuana will put criminals out of
business, as did the legalization of booze.

But booze is not the product to which marijuana should be compared;
cigarettes are.

Biker gangs, criminals living on reserves and others who smuggle and
market illegal cigarettes and other drugs need not worry.

Their market, as with the market for illegal cigarettes, is assured by
high government taxes.

Plus, they are likely to have a more desirable product than the
government allows.

As for the prospect of violent crime related to the illegal cigarette
trade, The Associated Press reported on the shooting death last
January of 25-year-old Nathaniel Tallman, killed trying to sell
marijuana in Colorado, where pot is legal.

"While no one expected the state's first-in-the-nation recreational
sales would eliminate the need for dangerous underground sales
overnight, the violence has raised concerns among police, prosecutors
and pot advocates that a black market for marijuana is alive and well
in Colorado."

Indeed, people might be tempted to go to the black market to escape
onerous taxes on alcohol if moonshiners could make a product as good
as Bacardi or Forty Creek Canadian Whisky, but they can't.

By contrast, cigarettes and marijuana are easier to
produce.

A 2009 study by the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco
found that of cigarette butts analyzed from 110 high schools in
Ontario, 30% were contraband."

So much for taking pot out of the hands of young people as Trudeau
says he wants to do.

I'm not arguing against legalizing pot which is a different
issue.

I'm pointing out that so long as we put up with a government liquor
monopoly, Soviet-style sales at The Beer Store and high taxes on
alcohol, the same backward practices will be employed managing marijuana.

Indeed, you'll have to be pretty stoned to enjoy buying pot at the
MCBO and The J-Store.
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MAP posted-by: Matt