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Prohibition
Pubdate: Tue, 10 May 2005
Source: Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact: http://www.langleyadvance.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1248
Note: Excerpted from a longer summary of candidate speeches, see:
http://www.langleyadvance.com/issues05/052105/news/052105nn9.html
PROHIBITION
As part of our ongoing election coverage, the Langley Advance News is
providing free space for local provincial candidates to clarify their
views on issues facing Langley voters.
Chris Scrimes
Marijuana Party
Prohibition
It is time to end Ottawa's failed criminal prohibition and, instead,
to allow the province to regulate and tax the marijuana industry.
Over the course of the last three decades, hundreds of thousands of
our fellow citizens - mostly youth - have been stigmatized with
criminal records simply because they prefer marijuana to merlot. This
alone is reason enough to end prohibition.
But prohibition causes much more social havoc than simply unnecessary
criminality. Prohibition is the reason marijuana is grown in suburban
basements instead of on farms and in industrial areas. Legal
agricultural crops are not grown in neighborhoods. And legal growers
have no need to steal electricity (sometimes unsafely) to avoid
detection. Finally, legal products do not fund organized, and
sometimes violent, criminal organizations. There are no coffee turf
wars.
The most comprehensive, and most recent, study comes from the Senate
of Canada which concluded that the prohibition of marijuana causes
more social harm than the use of the plant. And yet Ottawa has done
nothing - while we in B.C. continue to pay the price for their inaction.
We currently spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marijuana
prohibition. We also leave billions in tax revenues uncollected and
allow the industry to fund organized criminal groups. Because the
market is underground, young people find it easier to obtain marijuana
than cigarettes and alcohol. Regulation would put an end to these
problems. The province would benefit economically, with revenue from
taxing marijuana going into important social programs like health care
and education. And we would end the problems associated with suburban
basement grow-ops and the ever-increasing involvement of organized
crime.
Those who advocate for harsher penalties, or a U.S.-style war on
drugs, ignore the very example set by the United States. Jail terms,
mandatory minimum sentences and harsh enforcement have failed to
reduce the supply of, and demand for, marijuana. Everywhere we look,
we see the evidence that prohibition is a failure. It is time to take
action.
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MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPFFLorida)