Pubdate: Wed, 30 Jan 2013
Source: Powell River Peak (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Peak Publishing Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.prpeak.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/734
Author: Chris Bolster

CANNABIS ADVOCATE MAKES CASE

Municipalities Could Benefit From Increase In Tax Revenue

It's an idea whose time has come, according to a cannabis activist who
says a strong majority of British Columbians now support the
decriminalization of the drug.

Former provincial New Democratic Party leadership candidate Dana
Larsen spoke to a group of about 35 people in the Poplar Room at
Powell River Recreation Complex on Thursday, January 24.

Larsen, a founding member of both the national and provincial
marijuana parties, has been touring around the province since October
2012 in support of his Sensible BC campaign.

Sensible BC is an initiative-petition campaign to build support for an
HST-style referendum for the decriminalization of cannabis in
September 2014. Larsen has been visiting communities, talking to
residents and trying to build up a bank of supporters who can help him
collect the over 400,000 signatures that are mandated to trigger the
referendum vote. Sensible BC needs to collect signatures from 10 per
cent of registered voters in each provincial riding. It will have only
90 days to collect the signatures. Larsen said he wants to start
gathering the signatures this September.

"We need to gather a monumental number of signatures to make this
work," said Larsen. "While I know [support is] there, we don't have
the infrastructure in place yet to collect those signatures."

If the referendum is successful, the legislation that will be enacted
is called the Sensible Policing Act, which Elections BC lawyers have
deemed constitutionally valid, said Larsen. Because the province has
the jurisdiction over policing, it's the job of the Attorney General
to set the policing priorities and give them direction, he said.

"We want them to spend as little money and resources as possible on
enforcing the law against cannabis possession and redirect their focus
to more substantive offences," he said.

Larsen cited how in 2003 the BC government, with six other provinces,
told Ottawa that they weren't going to enforce the Long Gun Registry
Act.

"If they can do that for unregistered guns, they can do it for
cannabis consumption."

Once the referendum is triggered, Larsen is confident there will be
broad support for the initiative along the lines of recent changes in
Washington State and Colorado.

City of Powell River Councillor Debbie Dee was in attendance at
Larsen's talk. Dee voted in favour of decriminalizing cannabis at the
Union of BC Municipalities meeting which was held in September 2012.
That initiative passed by a 70 per cent margin.

"The war on drugs has been lost," said Dee. "I think it's a huge
amount of money that's being spent unnecessarily. As a city councillor
I would love to have the whole thing legalized to get the tax dollars."

In the face of a shrinking tax base a "viable option for Powell River
would be developing agricultural and medical tourism," said Dee. "The
hundreds of millions of dollars across the country being spent on
policing could be turned into several millions of dollars of taxation
money that could be used for much needed things like schools,
hospitals and infrastructure." 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D