Pubdate: Fri, 15 Sep 2017
Source: London Free Press (CN ON)
Copyright: 2017 The London Free Press
Contact: http://www.lfpress.com/letters
Website: http://www.lfpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/243
Author: Jodie Emery
Page: A7

GOVERNMENT GOES FOR REEFER MONOPOLY MADNESS

It's the worst possible provincial legalization plan: Ontario's
Liberal government has announced a state monopoly on the sale of legal
nonmedical cannabis, combined with a massive crackdown on the existing
cannabis industry.

Legalization wasn't supposed to be like this. Canadians increasingly
supported ending cannabis criminalization after watching billions of
tax dollars wasted by law enforcement going after peaceful people for
pot.

Marijuana has been grown and consumed in Canada for decades without
any measurable negative impact on the health and safety of society. In
fact, the impact has been more positive than negative, especially for
sick and suffering citizens.

Licensed producers of medical marijuana exist because of lawbreakers
winning court orders declaring Health Canada must provide access to
protect the Charter rights of medical consumers.

Civil disobedience is the only reason cannabis law reform has
happened. No government willingly increases cannabis freedoms.
Lawbreakers had to force change through the courts, protests, election
campaigns, media messaging and other forms of outreach.

Canadians, especially regular marijuana users, know the vast majority
of growers and suppliers are peaceful and non-violent. That's why they
support legalizing the existing pot industry and dispensaries. And
Justice Department records support that perception: 95 per cent of
cannabis growing cases in court have no connection to organized crime
or gangs, and the people charged were otherwise law-abiding.

This is what's supposed to be legalized: the tens of thousands of
providers who are currently defined as criminals by government policy.
They want to be legal. They want to come into the light, but the
government forces them to stay in the shadows.

Governments at every level have fought against cannabis for years with
law enforcement and propaganda. Now that the laws are changing -
thanks to advocates and legal activism - these same anti-pot politicos
want federal control of production and provincial monopolies on
distribution.

Even worse, these governments have declared war on "illegal" growers
and providers, denying them the option to transition into legality,
while promising to send officials with guns to shut them down - for
being unable to transition into legality.

We also know some former politicians and cops have founded or bought
into legal medical marijuana companies, hoping to cash in on legal
recreational pot after calling for and profiting from raids against
independent retailers. It is a very rotten state of affairs.

Member of Parliament Bill Blair, the former undercover drug narc and
police chief of Toronto, gleefully announced a quarter of a billion
tax dollars will be provided for "legalization law enforcement costs."
That's on top of the hundreds of millions of tax dollars already
funding anti-pot policing - but that's what happens when you put a
police officer in charge of legalization. So instead of legalization
reducing the money wasted on law enforcement, we're adding to it.

Additionally, the province of Ontario is going to spend hundreds of
millions of tax dollars setting up a new pot bureaucracy that isn't
needed or even supported by taxpayers and cannabis consumers. Why
won't Ontario legalize the current suppliers, who are already meeting
consumer demand?

Cannabis legalization should mean the end of criminalization.
Unfortunately, it seems the only thing being legalized is a
sure-to-fail government attempt to monopolize an industry that already
exists.

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Jodie Emery is a pot activist and cofounder of Cannabis Culture pot shops.
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MAP posted-by: Matt