Pubdate: Wed, 15 Feb 2012
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 The Edmonton Journal
Contact: 
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor.html
Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134
Authors: Mike Raptis and Ian Austin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

B.C. POLITICAL HEAVYWEIGHTS URGE DECRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

Four former B.C. attorneys general - one of whom served as premier 
- -have added their authoritative voices to calls for the 
decriminalization of marijuana.

Former NDP premier and federal health minister Ujjal Dosanjh, along 
with Geoff Plant, Colin Gabelmann and Graeme Bowbrick, added their 
experience as the province's top legal authority to legalization in a 
letter released Monday. Plant served in the Liberal government of 
former premier Gordon Campbell - Gabelmann and Bowbrick in earlier 
NDP governments.

"As former B.C. attorneys-general, we are fully aware that British 
Columbia lost its war against the marijuana industry many years ago," 
write the four, who collectively served as attorneys general from 
1991 to 2005, a critical period of time when public perception of pot 
smoking changed dramatically.

"The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana 
prohibition is airtight. The evidence? Massive profits for organized 
crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for 
our youth, reduced community safety and significant - and escalating 
- - costs to taxpayers."

The four say the Liberal government of B.C. Premier Christy Clark is 
wrong to support Prime Minister Stephen Harper's bid to have 
mandatory minimum sentences for minor pot charges.

"These misguided prosecutions will further strain an already clogged 
system, without reducing cannabis prohibition-related violence or 
rates of cannabis use," write the quartet.

"As attorneys-general, we were the province's chief prosecutors and 
were responsible for overseeing the justice system," they continue. 
"In this role, we became well aware of the burden imposed on the 
province's justice system and court processes by enforcement of 
marijuana prohibition."

They drew parallels to prohibition in the United States as a 
dangerous precursor of things to come.

"The most obvious parallel to today's marijuana prohibition is the 
bloodshed and gang warfare that emerged in the United States in the 
1920s during alcohol prohibition, and then disappeared when 
prohibition was repealed in 1933.

"It is time B.C. politicians listened to the vast majority of B.C. 
voters who support replacing cannabis prohibition in favour of a 
strictly regulated legal market for adult marijuana use."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom