Vancouver city council call to end prohibition on marijuana
Posted May 1, 2012 2:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver city council is calling for an end to the prohibition on marijuana. They are supporting the Stop the Violence campaign, calling for the adoption of a health-based strategy for dealing with the popular recreational drug.
The vote in favour of the motion was unanimous, with Green and NPA councillors supporting the motion put forward by Vision Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang.
“The federal (marijuana) laws are failing Vancouver, and they are failing Canadians” says Jang. “We have to do something more than just saying it’s illegal. We have to find a way of regulating it and getting it out of our neighbourhoods.”
He says marijuana should be treated like alcohol or tobacco, with rules governing where and how the product is sold. He add that the city needs to find a way to “tax the hell out of it,” as former Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell once famously said.
“What really surprises me now is when I walk through the streets of Vancouver, we’re not just seeing teenagers smoking it, but I’m finding nine and 10 year olds,” Jang laments. “In fact, people are telling me that even four year olds are getting it. And it’s easier to get marijuana these days than it is tobacco.”
He says laws that simply prohibit things do not work, as we have seen in the past with bans on alcohol and tobacco.
Jang adds rules governing tobacco have helped to reduce smoking rates across the country, and suggests a similar effort could possibly see a reduction in the number of people smoking marijuana.
Mayor Gregor Robertson also spoke to the motion, shortly before council voted.
“The estimate I’ve seen is that over a third of the funding that gangs operate with is generated from marijuana” he said.
“Clearly, we have to start re-routing that cash, and if we can do that to the public good, into looking after our city and taking care of our healthcare and education systems in particular, I think it would be a significant improvement.”
Last month, Stop the Violence BC invited John McKay to Vancouver to speak in favour of regulating and taxing marijuana. McKay is a former US Attorney, the same one who prosecuted BC’s Prince of Pot, Marc Emery.
Emery is serving a five year prison sentence in the US for selling seeds through a Vancouver-based mail-order business to customers in the US.
Along with officially endorsing Stop the Violence BC, Vancouver council has instructed staff to send letters to the Union of BC Municipalities, and to the federal and provincial ministers of health and justice, informing them of council’s new position on the marijuana issue.
