Stop the Violence B.C. (STVBC) is looking for B.C. business leaders to step out and support its campaign to shift from a costly, failed criminal approach to evidence-based regulation and taxation of adult marijuana use based on public health principles.
Dr. Evan Wood, leader of STVBC's push for a saner, safer, less costly alternative to marijuana prohibition, has attracted support from political, medical and legal leaders but would like to find some high-profile local business leader to join the campaign.
This is a particularly relevant issue in B.C., where so many of our pine-beetle-
ravaged small-town economies are dependent on a marijuana-growing industry estimated to reap as much as $6 billion in revenue a year, according to the anti-prohibition Fraser Institute. That's equal to all of B.C.'s forest products exports in 2011.
Darryl Plecas, director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research at the University of the Fraser Valley (and a supporter of marijuana prohibition), says the B.C. industry is at least hitting multibillion-dollar revenue, with outdoor grow operations forming the single largest industry on Vancouver Island.
Except for the growing number of medical marijuana growers and dispensaries (see "Pot sales: Profits or bust" – BIV issue 1184; July 3-9), all of this revenue is now going to "criminals." With the new federal laws requiring mandatory jail time for anyone growing more than six plants, and maximum sentences doubled from seven to 14 years, the industry could well be driven even deeper into the hands of hardened criminals who are less fearful of going to jail than the good-citizen operators scattered all over B.C. The new laws stiffen the legal prohibition against a product used to some degree by an estimated 430,000 British Columbians.
According to Plecas, the single largest source of funding for gangs and organized crime in B.C. is grow operations.
The goals of STVBC have been endorsed by a large number of high profile leaders: the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes the past presidents of Colombia and Mexico, former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Paul Volcker; and four former B.C. attorneys-general.
Public opinion is well past the tipping point on this issue. An Angus Reid poll found that:
- 69% of the B.C. adults surveyed think arresting marijuana producers and sellers is ineffective and B.C. would be better off taxing and regulating marijuana;
- 75% reject the notion that possession of marijuana should lead to a criminal records; and
- only 12% support keeping current marijuana laws in place.
Aside from public health, safety and political benefits, shifting to taxation and regulation of adult marijuana use could have big economic benefits. An open letter signed by 500 U.S. economists, including Milton Friedman, suggested that replacing pot prohibition with taxation and regulation in the U.S. would save $7.7 billion annually and could generate $6.2 billion a year in new revenue if legalized marijuana were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.
Wood is inviting B.C.'s business leaders to contact him ([email protected]) about signing a letter pointing out that cannabis prohibition does not provide value for money spent, meet its targets or reduce costs. On the contrary, it explains the easy access youth have to marijuana today as well as our increasing problems with organized crime and gang violence.
Who's in?
Peter Ladner ([email protected]) is a founder of Business in Vancouver and a former Vancouver city councillor. He is also the author of The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities.
