Pubdate: Sat, 27 Aug 2016
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Ian Mulgrew
Page: A9

HARCOURT PUMPED ABOUT POT PLAN

Ex-premier with unique perspective says Ottawa's finally on the right
road

Former premier-turned-pot-proponent Mike Harcourt couldn't have
sounded happier and more optimistic than if he just blew a big blunt.

"I did use marijuana in the '60s and early '70s but haven't used it
since," he laughed.

"I'm into wine - and a beer after a good tennis match. But from my
experience of the last 13 years as a partial quadriplegic - 20 per
cent of my body is still paralyzed - and I work with Rick Hansen and
the disabled community, so I've seen the suffering and the pain that
people with spinal-cord injuries and other disabled people go through,
and I think there are real benefits to cannabis."

Injured in a 2002 fall at his Pender Island cottage, the avuncular
erstwhile mayor of "Vansterdam on the Pacific" and NDP leader now is
chair of Lumby-based True Leaf Medicine International Inc., one of
400-plus firms in the regulatory pipeline to produce medicinal cannabis.

The new Liberal administration, however, has announced it will
legalize pot and recently appointed a task force to report on how that
should happen next spring.

Harcourt this week wrote to Ottawa urging it to use the existing
"onerous" vetting process for producers and the same distribution
system for medical and recreational cannabis.

His unique perspective should carry some weight.

"I've seen this issue from the angle of being a criminal defence
lawyer for 15 years and how destructive the laws were then,
particularly around marijuana," he explained.

"I saw it as chair of the ( Vancouver) police board for three terms
and as premier. My riding was Mount Pleasant with the Downtown
Eastside ... I've been around the issues of drugs for a long time from
an inside-the-system viewpoint, not just thinking about it as a
citizen who thinks the marijuana laws are wrong and haven't worked."

Finally, he said, Ottawa is on the right road.

"I think it was gutsy for the prime minister and the Liberals to take
on this issue," Harcourt said. "I think there is a pretty good
consensus in the country (that) there is a better way to deal with
this, and we're starting to move in the right direction."

As with alcohol under the Constitution, he thinks Ottawa will maintain
health responsibilities for cannabis but devolve authority for
recreational pot to the provinces and territories.

There are 33 licensed producers who have survived the exhaustive
seven-part screening and security clearance licensing process and
serve the medical market. But many more will be needed to meet
recreational demand.

"You've got a system up and operating, and potentially another 400
companies who could and should supply both the recreational and
medicinal market with a product that will comply with the strictest
safety standards," Harcourt maintained.

"(Medical cannabis) is a comprehensively and carefully regulated
sector, unlike the ad hoc blossom of illegal dispensaries around the
country."

In B.C., he envisions regulated producers such as True Leaf selling
via the liquor distribution branch supplemented by private outlets (as
with alcohol), naturopaths, pharmacists, doctors and licensed existing
dispensaries.

If you want to grow your own, that would be OK, he
added.

"It's like people in my own community, the Italian community, used to
make their own wine, still do," Harcourt said. "What the heck! I think
people who have the capacity to do that (grow cannabis) and want to do
that, why not?"

He didn't think many patients would grow their own because most have
special pain management issues that require particular strains of the
plant: "It's quite ailment specific and doing it on your own is hard
to do."

He predicted that the "wild west" in Vancouver, Toronto and other
cities - where dispensaries have opened willy-nilly in defiance of the
still-in-place criminal prohibition - will soon end.

Business licence and zoning requirements are essential elements to any
new scheme for regulating and distributing the drug: "I think it can
be worked out quickly and well."

He said the biggest problem he saw south of the border was the
conflict between states' legalization legislation and federal laws
that say marijuana is illegal.

"So banking institutions can't deal with producers or retailers,"
Harcourt said. "I think we can have a better system in Canada because
we have a national government that is dealing with it intelligently
instead of you-know-the-evil-of-weed hysteria that has been going on
since 1938 in the U.S. with huge tragic, terrible consequences for
millions of people."
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MAP posted-by: Matt