In Canada, a perfect illustration of the "balloon principle," which suggests that cracking down on illegal drugs in one area simply displaces the drug activity to another area (like the air in a balloon, which simply stretches the balloon in another place if the balloon is squeezed). As one crime-prone area is cleaned-up, problems pop up elsewhere. And the same approaches are tried again... And, finally, some smart thoughts on prohibition on a college campus.
]]>One wonders if and when the costs of cannabis prohibition, and the foregone tax revenue, will become more than struggling taxpayers are willing to prioritize.
For those more interested in jurisprudence than economics, an interesting case from British Columbia, where a provincial court has ruled that promoting public health and safety is no excuse for selling cannabis to consenting adults.
Ending on a positive note, the WAMM Festival was a great success in Santa Cruz, after organizers and authorities found a way to accommodate medicinal cannabis consumers at the family event.
]]>In Canada, with less than two weeks to the federal elections, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is again anxiously seeking scapegoats to denounce, so that he may "solve" the problem with more punishments. Harper continually says that people aren't punished enough for his liking, and has proposed law after law to punish an ever bigger dragnet full of "drug" related criminals, for ever longer jail terms. In a Packet & Times article this week, Carl Garland, a criminal lawyer in Ontario, says that longer jail terms won't solve anything - but drug-rehabilitation can. Harper's "stance is political theatre; an effort to play to a specific demographic. It is designed to create an emotional response based on peoples' common sense of justice."
Also this week in Canada, an Abbotsford News piece trots out conservative "tough on crime" mouthpiece Darryl Plecas to attempt to kindle fear of crime in the wake of official crime statistics which show crimes to be falling in Canada. Fear greatly O Canada, because "what about all the crimes that people don't report... the so-called victimless crimes." If longer jail terms for victimless (marijuana) crimes seem to be Plecas' goal, the "RCMP research" chair was emphatic that cannabis decrim was a bogeyman to be denounced: "I am not a fan of decriminalizing marijuana."
And from the U.K., the Guardian newspaper reports that next year's United Nations Global Cannabis Commission review will say regulating cannabis and allowing it to be sold to adults would be less harmful than the current prohibition. States the report: "Although cannabis can have a negative impact on health, including mental health, in terms of relative harms it is considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco." Expect outrage from prohibitionists, who claim anything but jail for cannabis use sends the wrong message to children.
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