Pubdate: Fri, 21 Apr 2017
Source: Telegram, The (CN NF)
Copyright: 2017 The Telegram
Contact:  http://www.thetelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/303
Author: Brian Jones
Page: B5

POT PLANT PLAN POSTPONED

It will be Russian giants again this summer. No, not Vladimir Putin. 
Russian giant sunflowers, which the seed package promises can grow up to 
eight feet high. We plant them every year for fun, and built a two foot 
by eight foot flower box especially for them, so we can have a veritable 
field of rising Russkies. (Tip: put the seeds in the dirt in late May, 
and you'll yield a swath of yellow by early September.)

This year, the Russian giants were to be supplanted by marijuana
plants. Again, just for fun.

That plan was buried by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his
Liberals, who extended pot prohibition for another year. Marijuana
"legalization" won't take place until 2018. Apparently, it takes time
to get rid of a bad law.

The Liberals' proposed pot law is "legalization" only in the slimmest
sense. More accurately, it is a cannabis cash grab. Companies have
been formed and are preparing to reap profits from legal pot.
Governments are calculating their potential tax take.

Lost amid the cash counting is the idea that an unjust law must be
overturned for the simple and single reason that it deprives citizens
of a reasonable right: the freedom to smoke marijuana if they so choose.

The hippies and stoners have been proven right. They've been right all
along, way back to the 1960s or earlier. How odd, then, to see in this
age of liberalization that cannabis is going corporate.

Most people probably thought that when the Liberals promised to
legalize marijuana, it would become, well, legal. That they could, if
they wanted, toss a bunch of seeds in the garden and watch pot prosper.

We should have known better. Liberals are, after all, Liberals. They
twist and torture language until it means only what they say it means.
So, Canadians will have "legalization," but not legal marijuana.

You won't be allowed to grow more than four plants per household. You
won't be allowed to sell it. You won't be allowed to possess more than
30 grams at a time.

This is preposterous. It is laughable, even without a toke. It
certainly is not making pot legal.

Marijuana, in terms of health and safety, is less dangerous than beer.
Will the Liberals now decree home brewers can produce a maximum of
four bottles of beer? When they go out, will they be limited to taking
one bottle?

The Liberals' betrayal of their promise to legalize marijuana is
egregious. The appropriate public response would be a "war on drug
laws." Hopefully, some young, using lawyers are planning just that.

If lawyers won't lead the battle against the Liberals' irrational new
laws, perhaps gardeners will. The so-called pot problem has always
been one of supply and demand. As many people have long said, rightly,
illegal drugs guarantee the involvement of organized crime. A benefit
of legalization, presumably, should be that easily available marijuana
will put gangs and criminals out of business.

The Liberals have other ideas. They will restrict production,
supposedly to control the market, protect children and youth, etc.

This might or might not force gangs to seek other sources of income,
but it will definitely guarantee profits for the newly created
cannabis cartel.

Speaking of which, it's such an irony. Conservatives have been the
loudest opponents of drug legalization. And yet, here is the business
crowd, ready and eager to make profits from pot.

What is needed is a non-profit cannabis clearinghouse that would
distribute marijuana for free. Hobby gardeners could grow marijuana
for fun - no different than flowers or veggies - and donate the
produce, outsmarting the Liberals, who failed to declare, "Thou shalt
not give away pot." Gardeners could bring down the gangs, foil the
opportunist pot capitalists and destroy governments' greedy plans for
a big tax grab.
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MAP posted-by: Matt