Pubdate: Fri, 22 Aug 2014
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Page: A7
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Peter O'Neil
Referenced: Child well-being in rich countries - A comparative 
overview, See pages 50-51: 
http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc11_eng.pdf

CANADA'S MARIJUANA CHALLENGE

JUSTIN TRUDEAU'S LIBERALS say they can legalize pot and make it
tougher for kids to get, a claim disputed by the Conservatives

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives are warning Canadians
that Justin Trudeau wants to make weed "more accessible to kids" by
displaying and selling it in neighbourhood stores.

Nonsense, the Liberal leader replies. Canadian youth already have easy
access to the prohibited substance despite the Conservatives'
hard-line approach to drugs. A regulated regime that legalizes
cannabis, the Liberals claim, will actually make access tougher.

"We are failing to protect our kids from the effects of marijuana,"
Trudeau said in an interview.

The debate, a textbook wedge issue sure to polarize voters in the 2015
election, appears to be resting on a simple question: How would
legalization affect Canada's youth consumption rate, which is already
the highest in the western world?

There's no simple answer, say experts, because if a future Liberal
government fulfils Trudeau's highest-profile promise, Canada will be
doing something no western developed country has ever dared try.

So while both experts and advocates for and against prohibition speak
with certainty about what they expect will happen, there's no model on
which to base conclusions that back up either Conservative or Liberal
claims.

"There's no evidence that (legalization and regulation) won't impact
youth, but there's also no evidence that it will," said Rebecca
Jesseman, a policy analyst with the Health Canada-funded Canadian
Centre on Substance Abuse.

She said a well-regulated regime - which bans advertising and
marketing, gives young Canadians information on the effects of
cannabis on developing brains and uses taxes to keep prices relatively
high - has the potential to prevent an increase in youth
consumption.

"Absolutely, i n an ideal world, you can design a perfect system," she
said. But the reality is that even the best system can't remove the
likely role played by organized crime in continuing to supply cheaper
black market product to youth, she said.

Stanford University law professor Rob MacCoun suspects the Liberal
proposal will lead to increased youth consumption, though he also
agrees that his views amount to informed speculation.

"We're really in uncharted territory," said MacCoun, author of several
academic studies assessing the effect of liberalized marijuana laws in
jurisdictions like the Netherlands and several U.S. states.

While there are plenty of unknowns about the Liberal plan, what is
clear is that the poll-leading party has made clear it wants to not
just decriminalize but legalize and regulate the industry.

That goes much further than the New Democratic Party, which favours
decriminalization of possession of small amounts of pot, and the
Conservatives, who are considering a ticketing and fine system for
possession but oppose legalization or decriminalization.

It's a huge difference, because legalization represents a government
attempt to scoop through the tax system the bulk of the huge profits
that now flow to organized crime groups like the Hells Angels.

The Netherlands is perhaps the best-known example of a liberalized
regime - it has regulated retail sales of small amounts since the
1970s. But trafficking remains illegal and police action against
organized crime, as well as other restrictions imposed on the
country's famous coffee houses, have kept prices high.

Colorado and Washington State have both recently legalized cannabis,
as has Uruguay. But experts say it's too early to determine the
effect. Neither U.S. state will necessarily be the model Canada would
be expected to follow, since both are allowing advertising and
marketing - factors influencing use. Liberal deputy leader Ralph
Goodale, in an interview Wednesday, ridiculed the Tories' allegation
that Trudeau wants to make pot more easily available to kids.

But he said the exact details of his party's proposal won't be made
public until its election platform is released.

What is clear, according to Goodale, is that the Conservatives' talk
about keeping pot out of kids' hands is belied by the statistics.

One UNICEF study said Canada's youth consumption rate was highest
among a selection of developed countries both in 2001-02, when 40 per
cent of 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds reported smoking pot over the past
year, and 200910, when the figure dropped to 28 per cent.

"The current system is just not working," he said.

MacCoun, who strongly endorses decriminalization but says he's
"agnostic" on legalization, said the biggest problem with the Liberal
proposal is the difficulty in keeping the price from falling sharply.

His studies have suggested that, post-legalization, the cost of an
ounce of weed could plunge more than 80 per cent. That's because of
the considerable cost criminals face in producing and trafficking
large amounts of an illegal substance.

While authorities could theoretically impose an 80 per cent tax on pot
to keep prices at current levels, that would keep the door open to
black market operators who would be able to function knowing they'd no
longer face criminal sanctions if caught violating regulations, he
said.

Neil Boyd, head of the criminology department at Simon Fraser
University, challenges MacCoun's assumption that youth consumption
will likely increase.

"Eighty per cent of Canadians and Americans use alcohol, but less than
10 per cent use cannabis, and it's not clear that price drops would
lead to increases in consumption, as the price of a cannabis high is
already very cheap," he told Postmedia News.

"A joint costs about five dollars on the illegal market and three
people can get high from that joint - much cheaper than an alcohol
high. And yet alcohol remains very much the intoxicant of choice in
our culture."

Boyd also questioned whether organized crime would have a major role
to play in a post-legalization world. "If criminal controls are
rescinded, it's just too easy for anyone to grow pot, and unlike the
you-brew beer and wine stores, the quality will be easily good enough
to meet the demands of the market," he said.

"So the economic future of the marijuana industry is tiny, in contrast
to the economic value of the alcohol industry."

MacCoun doesn't preclude the possibility Canada could create a
successful regime, and he said even if pot usage rises, that wouldn't
be a bad thing if it was offset by declining alcohol abuse.

He said Canada's public health system is well suited to play a role in
the developed world's first effort at the national level to legalize
and regulate cannabis.

Canada could "become the new model, and you'll see some countries in
Europe follow suit very quickly. There are a lot of countries looking
at this."  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D