Pubdate: Wed, 05 Nov 2014
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Dan Malleck
Note: Dan Malleck is an associate professor of Health Sciences at 
Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. He is the author of "Try to 
Control Yourself: The regulation of public drinking in 
post-Prohibition Ontario"; and of "When Good Drugs Go Bad: Opium, 
Medicine, and the Origin of Canada's Drug Laws," both from UBC Press.
Page: A12

HOW TO LEGALIZE POT? WE FIGURED THIS ONE OUT A CENTURY AGO

In releasing its Cannabis Policy Framework last month, the Centre for 
Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) argued that the harms caused by 
marijuana prohibition are far worse than the harms associated with 
its use. Therefore, concluded the report, pot should be sold legally 
in government-run stores, with strict controls on its distribution, 
marketing and sale.

The news media buzzed, high on the fantasy of a future free to 
smoke-it-if-you-got-it - and in which you could, in fact, get it.

But what would this new system look like, if it were ever to materialize?

The fact is, we already know. This is not the first time Canadians 
have addressed the question of how to manage the sale of a substance 
that many saw as wreaking havoc on the morality, economy and physical 
wellbeing of the nation.

In another era, that substance was alcohol. In the first half of the 
20th century, provinces began repealing liquor prohibition. They 
replaced it with government-run liquor-control systems, and over time 
this highly contentious substance became much more acceptable thanks 
to government oversight.

In Ontario, as was the case in most provinces, the Liquor Control 
Board managed the distribution and sale of liquor in all facets of 
public life. It also monitored customers' buying habits, and informed 
social services and police when a person's purchases suggested they 
might be drinking too much, or reselling illegally.

A clerk put the liquor in a plain paper bag and recorded the sale in 
the customer's liquor permit, a passport-sized ledger that each 
customer brought with them

Make no mistake: The process for purchasing liquor was onerous, 
bureaucratic and seemed designed to be as unappealing as possible. In 
spartan government stores, customers chose their poison from a 
printed list of products (the booze itself was never on display), 
filled in an order form and gave it to a clerk - who put the liquor 
in a plain paper bag and recorded the sale in the customer's liquor 
permit, a passport-sized ledger that each customer brought with them.

Why did people put up with this cumbersome system? Because they 
wanted to drink, and doing it legally under such a regime was 
preferable to consorting with criminals. Moreover, numerous erstwhile 
criminals preferred to do business legally. Many a fortune was made 
by former bootleggers who "went legit."

And when public drink sales were permitted in 1934, most people 
preferred drinking in supervised, dull hotel beverage rooms (no 
music, no singing, no game playing) than in illegal drinking places. 
Likewise, many owners of formerly illegal businesses also went legit, 
becoming respectable members of society. Within a decade, the sale of 
liquor was far less contentious than before prohibition.

As much as we like to disparage provincial control boards, they were 
essential in permitting alcohol to be reintroduced and distanced from 
associations of criminality and immorality.

The major difference between liquor in the 1920s and cannabis in the 
2010s is in the administrative structure of the regulatory systems. 
For example, in Colorado and Washington, state-level 
cannabis-legalization amendments include precise regulations on the 
sale of cannabis, and problems already are arising with the 
overly-detailed nature of the amendments themselves. Changing these 
rules will require still further constitutional amendments.

In Ontario, by contrast, most of the LCBO's rules were not embedded 
in the Liquor Control Act. That permitted considerable regulatory 
agility, so administrators could respond immediately to unexpected 
situations, issuing new directives on how much booze could be sold 
and to whom, and set prices that discouraged illegal purchases.

Control the drug carefully; eliminate the risks that arise from its 
distribution through criminal networks

Just as the LCBO was designed to control, but also permit, drinking, 
a Cannabis Control Board would need to operate under a similar 
philosophy. Make the system manageable and fair, and it will work, 
because people are willing to tolerate annoying rules in order to indulge.

It is this sort of change, nearly a century old in Canada, that the 
CAMH is advocating. Control the drug carefully; eliminate the risks 
that arise from its distribution through criminal networks; move 
cannabis from the category of criminality to being a legal legitimate 
recreational product.

The results could be overwhelmingly positive: police focusing on more 
heinous crimes; tax revenues from trade that previously enriched the 
criminals; closer monitoring of marijuana use, permitting deeper 
understanding of its social and physical effects; less disruption in 
family and social life; and so on.

Will it be easy? No. Will it usher in some utopia free of crime and 
social problems? Not a chance.

But will it improve the current situation? Absolutely. Even for those 
of us who do not smoke weed, a Cannabis Control Board will be more 
desirable than the dysfunctional policy of prohibition currently in place.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom