Going to Pot

There was a discernible jolt in the wake of election night when the good people of Colorado and Washington voted to decriminalize possession and use of marijuana.

Some folks here on the Left Coast were wondering how that would impact on our number one agricultural crop, B.C. Bud.   Surely if the neighbours can simply grow their own they won't be needing the high priced stuff from the True North.

Yet it turns out that all is not lost.  A new study finds that British Columbians themselves buy half a billion dollars worth of pot annually.   That's 500-million dollars per year in untaxed retail transactions.    That's 500-million dollars, a good chunk of it in the form of uncollected income taxes.   When you pile income taxes atop sales taxes atop other business activity taxes, that's a whole lot of taxes going uncollected.

Bad as the loss of that tax revenue is, regard must also be had to all the nasty things those pot scofflaws do with their untaxed windfall.  Selling Bud is one thing. Using those proceeds to import other consumables from weapons to heroin, cocaine or meth is another thing altogether.

So let's do what the people of Washington and Colorado have just done; let's grow up.

Reefer Madness

This will come as a surprise to most British Columbians but criminal charges for marijuana possession in this province have soared 88 per cent over the past decade.

But pot prosecutions aren't the only thing that's up.   So is public support for decriminalization of possession.   An Angus Reid poll found nearly three out of four British Columbians favour regulating and taxing pot.   In Vancouver, just 13% of respondents supported criminal prosecution for possession of a joint.   Here on the island that was down to just 8%.

It's unclear where the pot crackdown is taking place.  It isn't Vancouver.  34 were charged with simple pot possession in 2006 and that fell to just 6 charges in 2010.   One pot possession charge every two months, that's it?

Isn't it time society grew up and stopped this nonsense?

Cops For Pot

Police officers gathered with judges and prosecutors in Denver today, coming out to support Colorado's marijuana legalization initiative.

Tony Ryan, a 36-year veteran Denver police lieutenant and LEAP, told reporters that the marijuana-related calls his department received were rarely threatening, and more likely the result of an axe to ground than serious concern. Marijuana use, he says, is not related to crime, and legalizing it would reduce the strain on officer resources.

“Beyond just being ineffective, these laws waste important law enforcement resources that could instead be going to things that actually protect public safety, like solving and preventing murders, rapes and robberies," said Ryan.

In a sign-on letter, law enforcement explained how legalizing marijuana would have positive consequences. They write that Amendment 64, which legalizes and regulates marijuana for adults over 21, would:

• Put our police priorities where they belong, by ending the arrests of non-violent marijuana users and enabling police to focus instead on preventing violent crime
• Cut off funding to violent gangs and drug cartels, who generate the majority of their revenue from illegal marijuana sales
• Protect the lives of police officers now in the line of fire in the "drug war"
• Reduce marijuana access to children by instituting strict age-limits and public safety controls
• Restore mutual respect and good relations between law enforcement and communities bearing the brunt of the current marijuana laws

The Colorado Center on Law and Policy estimates that by taxing weed and saving law enforcement resources, Amendment 64 would generate $60 million in tax revenue and savings annually. The initiative states that the first $40 million raised each year will be spent improving education.

A close friend of nearly 40-years is a recently retired Detroit cop with a PhD in criminology.  He has always advocated decriminalization of pot.  He talked of going into homes and finding one family member shot dead and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey on the table but he never saw that with anyone who had been smoking weed.