Have you ever smoked marijuana? Of course I have, actually a lot, but I was younger then. I found it just made me paranoid so I stopped smoking many years ago.
This weekend at Christina Lake, a medical marijuana booth at the health fair got me thinking. Why is this substance still illegal in Canada?
South of the border, the states Washington and Colorado have become the first two states, earlier this year, to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21.
It comes as no surprise that a large majority of British Columbians want to follow suit. According to an Angus Reid Poll: Stop the Violence, 75 per cent of British Columbians – myself included – support the taxation and regulation of marijuana.
British Columbia could gain a lot, financially.
A study conducted for the Fraser Institute by economist Stephen T. Easton: Marijuana Growth in B.C., reveals that roughly 400,000 kilograms of marijuana is produced each year in B.C. That puts the value of the yearly crop at a wholesale value of $2 billion. But let’s say the average street price for a gram of weed was $10. That would double our industry to $4 billion. That’s a nice chunk of change that British Columbians shouldn’t ignore.
And what about all the money that is being spent each year on the prohibition of marijuana?
According to the Auditor General’s report of 2001, $450 million was spent between 1999 and 2000 on drug control, enforcement and education, 70 per cent of which were cannabis-related charges.
Statistics Canada has more recent numbers that expose the price of prohibition. In 2007, 32,472 people were charged with marijuana-related offences and each offence cost the taxpayers an average of $10,590. That puts our prohibition costs at $345.9 million.
Data from Washington suggests that pot smokers in that state could bring in $2.5 billion in taxes over five years in a regulated system.
Marijuana consumption is already widespread; I mean Vancouver once had the reputation as the marijuana capital of North America.
So whether it’s legalized or not, people are going to smoke and toke regardless. We make money off the sale of booze, cigarettes and we make money off the sale of prescriptions drugs, why not money off the sale of cannabis?