Pubdate: Wed, 18 Apr 2012
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Barbara Kay

A SECOND LOOK AT LEGALIZATION

Here at the comment section of the National Post, Dear Editor likes 
his opinion writers to keep an open mind on all subjects. He sees the 
ability to change one's opinion when the evidence indicates it's the 
right thing to do as a mark of intellectual maturity. So I am likely 
going to get a gold star this week, because I used to think that 
marijuana should be decriminalized but not legalized, and now I think 
it should be legalized as well.

I haven't changed my opinion that marijuana is, for many weak-willed 
individuals, a gateway to harder drugs. Nor do I think it is as 
harmless as pot pushers like to make it out to be. Heavy usage is 
especially dangerous to the still-developing teenage brain, and has 
been linked to mental illness. According to the chief of the U.K. 
Medical Research Council, "The link between cannabis and psychosis is 
quite clear now; it wasn't 10 years ago."

Even though it doesn't lead to fatal overdoses, the stuff most people 
are smoking is about five times more potent than it used to be, and 
addiction is common. Indeed, the difficulty many users find in 
quitting is alarming enough that psychologists and psychiatrists are 
debating amongst themselves whether "Cannabis Withdrawal Syndrome" 
should find its way into the next edition of the Diagnostic and 
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

But the fairness argument is too compelling to continue to ignore. 
Tobacco is harmful in any amount and it remains perfectly legal. 
Alcohol, while benign in reasonable quantities, is a gateway to 
alcoholism - the most intractable and damaging of addictions - which 
causes far more domestic and social misery than marijuana possibly 
could. And finally, there comes a certain tipping point when 
resisting the common will for no easily defined reason stops making 
social or economic sense.

Two thirds of Canadians want marijuana to be decriminalized. It seems 
clear to me that sooner or later marijuana is going to join alcohol 
and tobacco as a substance that the government recognizes cannot be eradicated.

Unless the moral argument is too powerful to override - in this case 
it isn't - economic realities can't be ignored. The street value of 
the cannabis industry in British Columbia is worth an estimated 
$30-billion a year; it would be worth double or triple that amount if 
it could legally attract tourists from the U.S. and other countries. 
Enforcement of our present laws is said to cost $1-billion a year; 
that money could be put to better use by rehabilitating hard drug 
addicts. The federal government brings in about $5-billion annually 
in tobacco taxes; legalizing marijuana would bring in at least a 
billion or two more.

(One novel argument for normalizing marijuana, is made by Peter 
Beckl, in his article on Rxdirect2u. com, which sings the praises of 
growing hemp over wood. According to Beckl, an acre of hemp produces 
the same amount of cellulose fibre as more than four acres of trees. 
Hemp grows back in four months, not twenty years, and so produces 
paper at a quarter the cost of wood pulp with a fraction of the 
pollution. This makes a lot of sense.)

I'd like to see marijuana legalized, but highly regulated. The 
government should oversee its growth, its potency and its 
distribution. It should be heavily taxed, as all recreational 
substances that can be abused are. But I'm not naive. Because it 
wouldn't be legally available to minors, and because the strength 
would be too muted for many potheads, a black market in more potent 
stuff would spring up immediately. Criminals will focus their efforts 
on marketing stronger, illegal marijuana to minors. And we shouldn't 
be surprised if our First Nations suddenly discover that growing and 
selling pot are ancient traditions in their culture that exempt them 
from paying sales taxes.

Legalization will no doubt come with its own set of problems. 
Commercialization and widespread marketing will bring in masses of 
new users. And, as I've argued before, for accountability and 
liability purposes, legalization will embroil government, insurance 
companies, schools and the medicare system in such a tortuous maze of 
regulatory and enforcement interference with their privacy, that 
potheads - and the libertarians who see legalization as a liberating 
panacea - will yearn for the paradoxical simplicity of illegal, but 
unencumbered access.

Still, the present situation is ethically and politically untenable. 
Legalization is preferable to the costly, ineffective and 
unjustifiable demonization of a substance that is no worse - and in 
many ways more benign - than other permitted substances.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom