Pubdate: Thu, 27 Sep 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Michael Smyth
Page: A6

CALL FOR POT DECRIMINALIZATION SYMBOLIC MOVE

It's not a far walk from the site of Wednesday's big municipal pot
party to one of the provincial capital's more surprising locations for
a marijuana grow-op.

Just last month, police busted a former bedroom furnishing store on
busy Government Street in Victoria. In a commercial district usually
known for its kitschy tourist shops, the cops instead found a large
marijuana grow operation.

But did I say surprising? Maybe not so much to the B.C. mayors and
councillors who voted to abandon an unwinnable war on pot.

After all, why waste police resources playing a cat-and-mouse game
with marijuana growers who operate in such a brazen fashion?

Don't forget this is B.C., a province where a particularly ballsy pot
grower once set up shop in a house owned by the attorney-general.

Ujjal Dosanjh was A-G in 1996 when his tenant was busted for growing
dope in the house Dosanjh rented to him. When marijuana growers have
so little fear of "the man" that they'll cultivate weed under the nose
of the province's top law-enforcement officer, it's a probably a sign
the system isn't working.

Dosanjh is now one of four former attorneys-general calling for
marijuana legalization. Four former Vancouver mayors are calling for
the same thing, along with B.C.'s public health officers.

It's all been a very sophisticated and effective public-relations
campaign, and it resulted in Wednesday's call for decriminalization of
marijuana at the Union of B.C. Municipalities. But it wasn't a
unanimous vote. "We've fried enough brains already," said former
federal cabinet minister Tom Siddon, now an Okanagan municipal councillor.

"I worry about where we are leading our nation and the values we set
as elected politicians. This is not a remedy. It is going to aggravate
the temptation of young people to move from marijuana ... to being
hooked on heroin, cocaine and chemical designer drugs ..."

"Think it through," cautioned North Cowichan Coun. Al Siebring, noting
many laws are imperfect but that doesn't mean they should be chucked
out. And Abbotsford Coun. Henry Braun warned colleagues it was
unrealistic to think criminals will dismantle large-scale grow-ops
just because small ones are decriminalized. "This recommendation is
not going to stop what is going on with the gangs," Siebring said.

As the debate rages, here's something to keep in mind: Marijuana laws
are federal jurisdiction. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper's
Conservatives have zero interest in decriminalizing pot.

Even federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, who supported
decriminalization in the past, recently told Global News he's now
opposed because modern pot "is extremely potent and can actually cause
mental illness."

B.C. mayors and councillors have taken a stand. But, for now, it's a
purely symbolic one.
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