Fixing Harper - Part 4 - Ending the War on Pot

Changing the laws that make growing and using pot (marijuana, weed, whatever) may seem like focusing on a trivial matter, especially when considered against other weighty matters of state, but, believe me, it's not.  Not trivial at all, and there are historical precedents.

For decades now, pot has been illegal to grow and to use.  Substantial police resources over the years have been devoted to enforcing this ban.  Many have ended up in jail.  And although sentences and police attention have both been reduced in recent years, pot still isn't legal, it's not regulated and it's not taxed.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I was a university student, it was apparently easier (and legally much safer) to get gallon jugs of pure ethanol from the chemistry lab to fuel parties than to score pot.  (I led a sheltered life and so only pass this information in the belief that it's true).  However, I do recall quite clearly a situation that happened where I was working for the summer back in the late 1960s.  More or less unbeknownst to most of us, one of the student engineers was selling pot from the bunkhouse.  He was caught, arrested and left his job.  I don't know what the outcome was, but it probably didn't end well for him (criminal record, unable to join certain professions because of that, and so on).  So most of us stuck to booze.  Even though we were mostly all younger than the legal drinking age of 21 at the time, it was far, far safer.  Any legal consequences were trivial.  And in Nova Scotia at the time, you could buy beer in cases of quart bottles.  Life was good.

Canada never had Prohibition as they did in the USA.  South of the 49th, the 18th Amendment came into effect January 17, 1920.  America went dry.  It lasted until 1933, when Congress passed the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th.  There were several reasons for this reversal.  First, Prohibition really wasn't working.  It did reduce alcohol consumption, but it spawned a huge underground criminal market for the stuff, organized crime flourished, there were more "speakeasies" in central NYC (about 2500) than there are bars there now.  About 75% of the government's tax revenue disappeared (only partly replaced by the 16th Amendment - income tax - in 1913).  And a future president, FDR, seemed to like moonshine and supposedly bought it (or just drank what was given to him - stories vary), thus violating that part of the Constitution.  And therein lies the story.  NPR's Planet Money ran a story about this called The Moonshine Stimulus.  You can download it as a podcast or listen on-line.

That explains the following image of a float in an anti-Prohibition parade in 1925.  Note the slogans: "Give Us Beer", "Balance the Budget", "Beer for Prosperity" and "Very Few Working"

Once Prohibition was repealed, the beer industry boomed with thousands employed, breweries constructed and, significantly for this post, vast increases in tax revenue.

The real story for Canada has, however, to do with pot.  The former Conservative administration adamantly refused to even consider de-criminalization of the pot laws or especially legalization.  

Despite the drug antics of one of Harper's supporters, despite the evidence....  Although most courts in the country have been handing out lighter sentences in recent years, pot's illegal status hasn't changed.  

Despite the USA's "War on Drugs" (a war that has failed spectacularly) and recent moves by a few states (Colorado, Washington, etc) to legalize pot, Canada has remained firmly in the pot prohibition camp.  

Until now, however.

The current Liberal administration has vowed to change the laws on pot.  It's unclear when or how, exactly, but the idea is, at the very least, to regulate and tax the stuff, taking a page from the way governments have treated, and profited, from booze.