Pubdate: Fri, 01 Sep 2017
Source: Columbia Journal (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Columbia Journal
Contact:  http://www.columbiajournal.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4403
Author: Tousaw Law
Page: 10
Cited: http://mapinc.org/url/t0nGi3RH

STATEMENT ON CANNABIS CULTURE RAIDS

Early this summer a variety of police departments executed warrants
that appear to have been sought by the Toronto Police Services. Marc
and Jodie Emery have been arrested, along with several other cannabis
activists including Chris and Erin Goodwin, Britney Guerra and perhaps
others.

This latest salvo in Canada's senseless war on cannabis and cannabis
consumers is a moral outrage and has no place in a free and democratic
society. The Canadian public has supported legalization for many
years. Our government has finally gotten around to moving, slowly,
toward ending prohibition after at least 45 years of studies, Royal
Commissions, government reports and other evidence that legalization
is the only rational, compassionate and sensible policy option.

And yet good people continue to be arrested, locked into cages and
have their liberty infringed in the pursuit of our immoral and
senseless war on this beneficial plant. Make no mistake, this is not
about public safety. This is not about protecting the public. There is
no harm being done by the production and sale of cannabis, for medical
or recreational purposes, in storefront dispensaries. In fact,
dispensaries quite clearly reduce harm, reduce street sales, create
good jobs, increase economic activity and assist in the transition
away from a black market for cannabis. Dispensaries are a public good.

Arresting anyone for a cannabis related offence is unjust, immoral and
creates harm. Coordinated country-wide raids attempting, futilely, to
enforce an outdated and harmful law degrades public confidence in the
administration of justice, wastes valuable taxpayer funds, wastes
scarce police, prosecutorial and judicial resources and benefits
precisely no one.

Our Prime Minster has promised to legalize cannabis. That promise is
now two years old. Yet the arrests continue and the harm continues to
be done by this terrible law. This is Canada in 2017, some 45 years
after Mr. Trudeau's father accepted the Le Dain Commission's findings
that prohibition was an abject failure that should be repealed. In
that span hundreds of thousands of good Canadians have been harmed by
prohibition. Enough is enough.
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