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Pot Busts Waste Tax Dollars
Pubdate: Thu, 10 Jan 2002
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Chuck Beyer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
POT BUSTS WASTE TAX DOLLARS
The recent Auditor General's report on prohibition criticized the federal
government for a lack of accountability.
It confirmed that the government spends $500 million a year on its
prohibition strategy, with two-thirds of all drug charges being for pot.
$500 million a year works out to about $60,000 an hour or $1,000 a minute.
Since two-thirds of charges are for pot, two-thirds of that hourly budget,
or $40,000 an hour, is spent on pot prohibition.
Remember that Canada's books are in the red -- so we are borrowing that
$40,000 an hour and will be paying interest until the government repays the
loan, which is generally never.
Only the government could go to a bank and keep getting this kind of money
for a program that is such an abject failure. Can you imagine if any one of
us tried to get a loan from a bank on a car that does not work 95 per cent
of the time?
That is what you are paying for with marijuana prohibition.
And as for the raid on the local bookstore -- just part of the theft of
your tax dollars.
Chuck Beyer, Victoria
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