Pubdate: Thu, 27 Sep 2012
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Bill Cleverley

MUNICIPAL LEADERS JOIN CALL TO DECRIMINALIZE POT

Municipal leaders called for the decriminalization of marijuana at the
Union of B.C. Municipalities convention here Wednesday. "I'm
absolutely thrilled. I think it's very important," said marijuana
activist Dana Larsen, adding the vote sets the stage for a petition
campaign to decriminalize possession and use of cannabis in B.C. In
what pot activist Dana Larsen called an important step, municipal
leaders from across B.C. called Wednesday for the decriminalization of
marijuana.

Opinions on the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention floor were
clearly divided but, after about 30 minutes of debate, a clear
majority of municipal mayors, councillors and regional leaders voted
in favour of a resolution calling on appropriate authorities to
decriminalize and research regulation and taxation of pot.

"I'm absolutely thrilled. I think it's very important," said Larsen,
adding it sets the stage for the Sensible B.C. petition campaign to
decriminalize possession and use of cannabis by adults in B.C.

Larsen conceded the vote by delegates attending the convention is
largely symbolic. "But it shows that although these are federal laws,
it's the provinces and the cities - municipalities - that really pay
the brunt, pay the cost and really have to deal with the effect of
these laws.

"So it's very appropriate for municipalities and cities in British
Columbia to say they've had enough. We want to see something
different. We want to decriminalize marijuana."

Metchosin Coun. Moralea Milne, who drafted the resolution, told
delegates she wasn't advocating that people smoke marijuana.

"I think a walk in the woods is a way better way to clear your head,
and, personally, I'd rather have a martini - and I'm allowed to
because we changed that very wrong prohibition stance that we had,"
Milne said.

"When they had alcohol prohibition, the crime rate went up. The murder
rate went up. But when it was taken down, [crime] all went down," she
said at the conference.

Some delegates argued the potential tax revenues are too good to pass
up on a product that 585,000 British Columbians admit to using.

But former Conservative MP and current regional director for Okanagan
Similkameen Tom Siddon said the issue is not about taxation and that
decriminalization could exacerbate the drug problem in the country.

"I think we've been frying too many brains," Siddon
said.

"You can say all you like about alcohol and the prohibition movement
of the '30s, but our chief inspector in our regional district told us,
frankly, you can do all you like about decriminalization [but] you
will only make the drug trade and the gangs and the import problem of
cocaine worse."

Siddon later told reporters that decriminalizing marijuana was
"oversimplistic and naive" and that penalties for cultivation and sale
of drugs should be stiffened.

"Penalties do not discourage the production of cannabis and B.C.
Bud.

"It was clearly indicated in the debate here that there's nothing in
this measure which is going to further reduce growing by
decriminalizing simple possession," he said.

Asked later what she thought of the resolution, provincial Health
Minister Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid said it's clearly not a
black-and-white issue.

"I had patients whose lives were really damaged by marijuana," said
MacDiarmid, who practiced family medicine in Rossland.

While it's important for the province to listen to the UBCM,
decriminalizing marijuana is clearly a federal issue, she said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt