11 Reasons to End Cannabis Prohibition In Canada

With California heading to a decision on marijuana legalization later this year, the debate is gaining some well deserved exposure in Canada. A reversal of archaic thinking should prevail on reversing prohibition, and Canada should lead down this path.


Here are 11 powerful reasons to end prohibition of cannabis:

1. Legalization would eliminate the estimated $10 billion collected each year in B.C. alone, by gangs ranging from the H.A. to U.N.

2. Gangs exchange marijuana for harder drugs such as cocaine from South of the border, which come into Canada in large quantities, and feed the drug distribution “pushing” system.

3. Shipments of marijuana into the U.S. also get exchanged for American made guns.

4. The price of marijuana will overnight crash to 10% or less of current levels.

5. Legalization would bring much needed tax revenues.

6. Legalization would dramatically reduce whatever effect marijuana might have as a gateway drug – when you eliminate the financial benefit on the street, you eliminate the exposure to the “pusher.” When you eliminate contact with the pusher you eliminate much of the exposure to hard drugs.

7. Allowing Canadians to grow a maximum of 5 plants for personal use, for example, would eliminate the thousands of dangerous, energy sucking, destructive grow ops that the police claim exist in surprising numbers. Apparently 1 in 4 homes in large swaths of Surrey, B.C. are grow ops.

8. Canada would save billions of dollars currently spent on the whole process of catching, charging, “trialing,” and incarcerating users. The enormous bureaucracy burdening the taxpayers, would shrink dramatically. The vocal voices currently against legalization, beside the pushers, include those who financially benefit from existing laws.

9. Overnight you will find that unsafe, spiked marijuana will disappear.

10. Test labs would bring conformity, awareness and a certain degree of safety to consumption. There are 500 cannabinoids in cannabis which can have different effects depending on their degree of presence in the samples. Along with cannabinoid analysis, laboratories could test for fungal, bacterial, e.coli and pesticide screening. “Certification,” would bring a degree of safety and standardization of protocols to what is now a very often dangerous product.

11. Medicinal cannabis use has broad support and cannabis has been proven effective in dealing with pain. Safe cannabis should be made available to sufferers through certified dispensaries.
The spread of hard drugs is disintegrating large portions of Canadian society. The power and reach of the networks that push the hard drugs has been made powerful and ubiquitous by billions made from marijuana. It’s time to end the insanity that has fuelled this festering sore that impacts every neighborhood.

Additions to this list through comments are welcome.

[Go here to read comments from the originally printed story from Digital Journal].

- Article from Digital Journal on July 20, 2010.