Man who put BC pot activist in jail pushes to legalize it
Posted April 18, 2012 5:37 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The former US Attorney in Seattle who prosecuted BC pot activist Marc Emery was in Vancouver today, and he’s calling on the federal government to legalize marijuana.
John McKay is not saying that he regrets prosecuting the pot activist for selling marijuana seeds to US customers using a Vancouver-based mail-order business. But he says prohibition, as a policy, is a complete failure.
“I’m very pleased to be here today to discuss my support, as a private citizen now, for the regulation and taxation of marijuana as a much better answer to the enormous threat facing citizens of both Canada and the United States, because of our failed policies on Marijuana,” says McKay. “And I want to say this just as clearly and as forthrightly as I can – marijuana prohibition, criminal prohibition of marijuana, is a complete failure.”
“It’s a failure in the United States. I would respectfully offer that it is a failure here in Canada as well.”
“The problem posed by the vast marijuana black market, criminal marijuana black market, is a threat to public safety both in the United States and in Canada.”
“I think it’s time to rethink our criminalization policy and prohibition policy on marijuana.”
McKay is here on the invitation of Stop the Violence BC, a coalition including members of law enforcement, legal experts, public health professionals and academics. The group is calling for marijuana policies that improve public health while reducing social harms, including violent crime.
McKay compares marijuana prohibition to a similar policy in the US that banned alcohol until the 1930’s.
“We had a constitutional amendment to make alcohol illegal. We then had a repeal through another constitutional amendment in our history after we learned that alcohol prohibition was funding mafia and violent gangs. If that sounds familiar, it should.”
In November, voters in the US will choose their next president, while voters in Washington State will also decide on a ballot initiative calling for the legalization of marijuana. A group collected well over a 250,000 signatures in order to force the vote.
McKay says legalizing and taxing pot in that state could generate up to a $500 million in revenue annually.
Former BC Attorney General Geoff Plant, who in the past has spoken in favour of legalizing pot in BC, also spoke at today’s event. Jodie Emery, wife of the man John McKay helped put in jail in the US, was also on the panel.
