Legalize pot, say former B.C. attorneys general
ShepherdsDog @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:41 am
PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
Although,I can see all the dope smokers freaking out when they discover that you can still go to jail for growing since the only place you'll legally be able to get the stuff is from government run dispenseries. 
One step at a time. As long as I can buy it, and the gov't keeps the prices reasonable, and believe me, they can tax the shit right out of it and it'd still be reasonable compared to current street prices, I'll be satisfied until I have the same right to grow some as anybody else that makes their own beer or wine.
Chances are that the government grown/regulated weed will be extremely mild, and THC % will be limited for the legal pot. This will create another black market for illegally grown pot.
EyeBrock @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:30 am
Curtman Curtman:
EyeBrock EyeBrock:
martin14 martin14:
When they had the chance to do something, they did nothing.
Now they sit outside and bark.
Now they sit outside and bark.
I totally agree. This would have had way more impact if these guys had the gonads to say this while they were in office.
Typical sales-guys. No gonads.
Some of them have been saying it for years and years. It helps to have a group like Stop The Violence to get the message out.
Ujjal Dosanjh was health minister during the Paul Martin government while they tried to pass the decriminalization bill.
Maybe you weren't paying attention to their gonads until recently.
Really? Show me a press release any of these three made to support their current stance when they were in office.
1Peg @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:36 am
ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:
PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
Although,I can see all the dope smokers freaking out when they discover that you can still go to jail for growing since the only place you'll legally be able to get the stuff is from government run dispenseries.
One step at a time. As long as I can buy it, and the gov't keeps the prices reasonable, and believe me, they can tax the shit right out of it and it'd still be reasonable compared to current street prices, I'll be satisfied until I have the same right to grow some as anybody else that makes their own beer or wine.
Chances are that the government grown/regulated weed will be extremely mild, and THC % will be limited for the legal pot. This will create another black market for illegally grown pot.
I've tried medicinal pot before, it really wasn't bad at all. It wasn't Kush by any means, but it was still good.
Curtman @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:01 am
Does the government produce tobacco or alcohol? So why would they produce marijuana for a regulated market?
peck420 @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:07 am
Curtman Curtman:
Does the government produce tobacco or alcohol? So why would they produce marijuana for a regulated market?
No, they don't.
But, they do monitor and regulate the amount of nicotine and alcohol that the producers are allowed to have in their products.
No reason to believe that they would not regulate THC content in marijuana if it is legalised.
andyt @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:14 am
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
Because of past actions or lack thereof, a sudden change in opinions like theirs makes it hard to believe that it's a genuine sentiment and not just more political pandering, which I suspect to be more of the truth than their concern about legalizing Marijuana.
Political pandering to what end?
andyt @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:16 am
PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:
It's all moot anyway. All the arguments mean dick until the US gets its head out of its ass in regards to pot.
Until that day, the best we can hope for is a re-decrimming of it for simple possession, AND more importantly to decrim the cultivation of enough for personal supplies.
Until that day, the best we can hope for is a re-decrimming of it for simple possession, AND more importantly to decrim the cultivation of enough for personal supplies.
That would be a big start, and would help to undercut the gangs. But, that is exactly one of the things holding up decrim/legalization - that pot's too easy to produce and so easier to evade taxes.
andyt @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:19 am
peck420 peck420:
Curtman Curtman:
Does the government produce tobacco or alcohol? So why would they produce marijuana for a regulated market?
No, they don't.
But, they do monitor and regulate the amount of nicotine and alcohol that the producers are allowed to have in their products.
No reason to believe that they would not regulate THC content in marijuana if it is legalised.
And they'll sell you overproof booze if that's what you really want. I don't see a big black market for ethanol. So why buy illegal weed if you can buy the legal stuff that's a little less potent and you have to smoke a little more?
Freakinoldguy @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:59 pm
Curtman Curtman:
Does the government produce tobacco or alcohol? So why would they produce marijuana for a regulated market?
They wouldn't, they'd have licensed growers just like licensed brewers and distillers but it still wouldn't mean you could grow your own so it wouldn't be much different than it is now with the exception of not ending up with a crimimal record for posession.
But, like I said before, until the US smartens up, the gangs up here will have an illegal market to grow large quantities for. So if the US does get as PA9 so succinctly put it "their heads out their asses" the gangs will just find new endeavors to generate illegal revenues.
Crime isn't going away just because you can smoke dope legally.
andyt @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:58 am
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
Crime isn't going away just because you can smoke dope legally.
Can you cite one person who has made that claim except you setting up a strawman? It will reduce the income of criminals, same as it did for booze.
EyeBrock @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:04 am
Much easier to grow weed than distill booze.
andyt @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:11 am
What's your point? If weed is legalized and grown in volume by legal businesses, it will undercut any black market weed - so why grow it illegally? If they have any sense at all, they will allow people to grow their own in small quantities - essentially like the beer and wine home industry now. Weed is easy to grow, yet there exists a huge market for the stuff grown by others - guess dopies are just too lazy to grow their own.
EyeBrock @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:16 am
I'm stating the obvious.
I have no issue with legalisation or decriminalistion of weed. My comments on this thread have been aimed at the spineless former BC AG's who now suddenly have the minerals to state what they cowered away from when their opinion mattered. Look for your usual fight elsewhere.
andyt @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:22 am
One sitting pol who's come out in favor or decrim is Robertson. Guess being mayor of Vancouver that's not a politically very risky thing to do, since the trogs mostly live in the Fraser Valley.
$1:
Fighting the war against the war on drugs ... late in the day
Four former B.C. attorneys-general have taken a stronger position on legalization of marijuana than they ventured when they were in office
Oh, brave band of brothers! Four former B.C. attorneys-general - Colin Gabel-mann, Ujjal Dosanjh, Graeme Bowbrick and Geoff Plant - have platooned together to fight the war against the war on drugs.
They want to see the legalization and state control of marijuana.
They even released to the public a letter saying so, as if to stiffen their message with the starch of officialdom.
They then mailed that letter to Premier Christy Clark and opposition leader Adrian Dix with the expectation that a letter from four former A-Gs is not so easily tossed in the circular file, as yours or mine would be.
"As former BC Attorneys General," their letter began, "we are fully aware that British Columbia lost its war against the marijuana industry many years ago. The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana prohibition is airtight. The evidence? Massive profits for organized crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for our youth, reduced community safety, and significant - and escalating - costs to taxpayers."
Well, no kidding. Yet the critical phrase in that passage is "many years ago." Theirs is an admission that this wasn't a light that just recently went on in their heads.
This war encompassed all four of their terms.
So where were their voices when the weight of their office might have had real, and changing, impact?
Let's look at the record. In 2002, when Plant was A-G, he stated flatly that decriminalization of marijuana was not a provincial concern.
"This is a matter for the federal government. It is not a matter on which the government of British Columbia has a position and not a matter on which I have an opinion."
This is an impeccable legal position, it just isn't a brave or frank one. It observes the nice-ties of governance - far be it from him to trespass on federal property. But it isn't leadership. It's deflection.
Plant softened that stance a couple of months later by saying that, while reiterating he still had no official stance on decriminalization, he questioned spending police resources going after petty pos-session when large grow ops were funding organized crime. This, I guess, was progress. At least he entertained enough private doubts to offer up a public question. But as for the link between decriminalization and the effect it might have on the proliferation of large grow-ups, and the violence and criminality they gave rise to, he did not mention it.
As for Bowbrick, a lawyer like Plant, he was A-G for only a year, from 2000-2001. The Sun's research staff could find no statement of his on decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. My apologies to him if we somehow missed it.
Dosanjh's record on the issue was, like Plant's, mixed.
He was A-G from 1995-2000. During his term, he said he was not averse to having a debate on the issue. And in 1997, he was quoted in The Sun as saying:
"If we reach a national consensus to exclude marijuana from tougher sentences, so be it. But if it's currently illegal and you have someone growing or smuggling large quantities, I as attorney-general can't ignore that violation of the law."
And he wasn't about to have anything to do with changing the law. In this, Dosanjh parted ways with his federal NDP counterparts at the time, who were in favour of decriminalization (as is the provincial NDP now). In 1996, he was quoted as saying:
"I don't believe one can conclude we ought to decriminalize marijuana. I don't think, as the attorney-general, I can argue for the decriminalization of marijuana."
Once he went to Ottawa as an MP, however, he fell in line with the federal NDP policy with which he had previously disagreed.
"People," he told me yester-day, "have the right to change their minds, don't they?"
And so he voted in favour of a bill that would allow small amounts of marijuana to be grown for personal use - which had no chance, of course, of being passed into law.
Gabelmann was the first among the quartet to grapple with the issue in the early 1990s. Responding to a report by B.C. chief coroner Vince Cain that concluded way back then that the war on drugs was already an "expensive failure" - a report commissioned by his department - Gabelmann promised to raise the matter of decriminalization with his federal counterpart.
So there's, um, that.
Which brings us to today, which looks a lot like yesterday.
When asked about the A-Gs' letter, Premier Clark fell back on the position that the issue was a federal one. She would leave it to the feds, she said.
Brave. So very brave. People are getting whacked in public, the province is awash in dirty money, but, you know, it's Ottawa's problem.
Here's hoping she continues to take her cues from our former A-Gs, who after all these years have finally found their voice, and who wrote in their letter to her:
"While it is easier to take a leadership position on controversial issues once one is out of public office ... "
I'll stop right there.
Four former B.C. attorneys-general have taken a stronger position on legalization of marijuana than they ventured when they were in office
Oh, brave band of brothers! Four former B.C. attorneys-general - Colin Gabel-mann, Ujjal Dosanjh, Graeme Bowbrick and Geoff Plant - have platooned together to fight the war against the war on drugs.
They want to see the legalization and state control of marijuana.
They even released to the public a letter saying so, as if to stiffen their message with the starch of officialdom.
They then mailed that letter to Premier Christy Clark and opposition leader Adrian Dix with the expectation that a letter from four former A-Gs is not so easily tossed in the circular file, as yours or mine would be.
"As former BC Attorneys General," their letter began, "we are fully aware that British Columbia lost its war against the marijuana industry many years ago. The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana prohibition is airtight. The evidence? Massive profits for organized crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for our youth, reduced community safety, and significant - and escalating - costs to taxpayers."
Well, no kidding. Yet the critical phrase in that passage is "many years ago." Theirs is an admission that this wasn't a light that just recently went on in their heads.
This war encompassed all four of their terms.
So where were their voices when the weight of their office might have had real, and changing, impact?
Let's look at the record. In 2002, when Plant was A-G, he stated flatly that decriminalization of marijuana was not a provincial concern.
"This is a matter for the federal government. It is not a matter on which the government of British Columbia has a position and not a matter on which I have an opinion."
This is an impeccable legal position, it just isn't a brave or frank one. It observes the nice-ties of governance - far be it from him to trespass on federal property. But it isn't leadership. It's deflection.
Plant softened that stance a couple of months later by saying that, while reiterating he still had no official stance on decriminalization, he questioned spending police resources going after petty pos-session when large grow ops were funding organized crime. This, I guess, was progress. At least he entertained enough private doubts to offer up a public question. But as for the link between decriminalization and the effect it might have on the proliferation of large grow-ups, and the violence and criminality they gave rise to, he did not mention it.
As for Bowbrick, a lawyer like Plant, he was A-G for only a year, from 2000-2001. The Sun's research staff could find no statement of his on decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. My apologies to him if we somehow missed it.
Dosanjh's record on the issue was, like Plant's, mixed.
He was A-G from 1995-2000. During his term, he said he was not averse to having a debate on the issue. And in 1997, he was quoted in The Sun as saying:
"If we reach a national consensus to exclude marijuana from tougher sentences, so be it. But if it's currently illegal and you have someone growing or smuggling large quantities, I as attorney-general can't ignore that violation of the law."
And he wasn't about to have anything to do with changing the law. In this, Dosanjh parted ways with his federal NDP counterparts at the time, who were in favour of decriminalization (as is the provincial NDP now). In 1996, he was quoted as saying:
"I don't believe one can conclude we ought to decriminalize marijuana. I don't think, as the attorney-general, I can argue for the decriminalization of marijuana."
Once he went to Ottawa as an MP, however, he fell in line with the federal NDP policy with which he had previously disagreed.
"People," he told me yester-day, "have the right to change their minds, don't they?"
And so he voted in favour of a bill that would allow small amounts of marijuana to be grown for personal use - which had no chance, of course, of being passed into law.
Gabelmann was the first among the quartet to grapple with the issue in the early 1990s. Responding to a report by B.C. chief coroner Vince Cain that concluded way back then that the war on drugs was already an "expensive failure" - a report commissioned by his department - Gabelmann promised to raise the matter of decriminalization with his federal counterpart.
So there's, um, that.
Which brings us to today, which looks a lot like yesterday.
When asked about the A-Gs' letter, Premier Clark fell back on the position that the issue was a federal one. She would leave it to the feds, she said.
Brave. So very brave. People are getting whacked in public, the province is awash in dirty money, but, you know, it's Ottawa's problem.
Here's hoping she continues to take her cues from our former A-Gs, who after all these years have finally found their voice, and who wrote in their letter to her:
"While it is easier to take a leadership position on controversial issues once one is out of public office ... "
I'll stop right there.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Fighti ... z1mcpYm6lj
Saffron @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:26 am
EyeBrock EyeBrock:
Much easier to grow weed than distill booze.
No kidding. I have a little cottage in the Laurentians, and all my senior citizen neighbours grow a little pot in their backyards. For medicinal reasons, of course. 85 yr olds are so funny when they're high.