Vic Toews Got Bumped

There was an excellent analysis of the recent Harper cabinet shuffle in the Star Phoenix this morning. At last I have a use for the newspaper, aside from bird cage liner.

Here is a list of all the great and wonderful things Mr. Toews accomplished as Justice Minister:

He mused about the possibility of throwing kids as young as 10 in jail as part of amendments to the Young Offenders Act. It didn't happen, but it helped to shape perceptions of the Conservatives' approach to justice;

He introduced a "three strikes" bill that said anyone convicted of three sexual or violent crimes would automatically be categorized as dangerous offenders unless they could convince a judge otherwise;

He announced he would arm Canadian border guards;

He abandoned the Liberals' plan to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana;

He introduced public hearings to confirm Supreme Court judges;

He put police representatives on provincial judicial advisory committees, a move called an attempt to stack the bench with right-wing judges; and

He abolished the Law Commission of Canada, which funded research and recommendations for changes to federal laws.

Some of these measures proved to be popular with the "kids these days are no damn good lock'em up and throw away the key" set. The rest of us were unimpressed. I was especially unimpressed with his attacks on potheads. He abandoned decriminilization efforts. If he abandoned decrim in favour of legalization I would be happy. But Toews is in favour of cracking down on grow-ops, seemingly oblivious to the fact that attacking the supply of pot is not doing potheads any favours. Getting rid of Toews was a good idea considering we are probably going to have another election. Ugh, the thought of another federal election is making me queezy.

Decriminilization is a shitty idea. It just gives the cops the power to hand out fines for consuming cannabis. It does nothing to address the black market and will actually make life easier for street dealers. Decrim will not allow people to grow their own weed or have access to a cheap and safe supply. It perpetuates reefer madness by giving people the misguided idea that smoking weed is dangerous and needs to be punished. It's either full legalization or nothing. Decrim is pure shit and is a nice, easy middle road that will please nobody and let politicians pat each other on the ass and feel like they are accomplishing something. When in reality, they are using reefer madness to further their own ends. Only a garden tool would read the Senate Report and come to the conclusion that decrim will solve any of the problems caused by the War on Drugs.

Do you know what will happen if decrim passes? The street dealers will go nuts, the price of weed will go down and everybody will say "But what about the children?" Weed will be back on the shit list and will be banned again. Then any time a pissed off pothead says "Legalize Regulate Medicate Educate" some uppity jackass will say "But we already tried that and the mental institutions were packed full of junkie potheads" The giant wall of stupid will overwhelm me and I will decide blogging is a total waste of time and I will start a pothead lesbian coven and worship seagulls. That will make hell of a lot more sense than trying to explain to people why decrim is bad and legalization is good.

Cash value of pot crops is highlighted in report

SACRAMENTO -- For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.

A report to be released Monday by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the United States exceeds $35 billion -- far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay.

California is responsible for more than one-third of the cannabis harvest, with an estimated production of $13.8 billion that exceeds the value of the state's grapes, vegetables and hay combined -- and marijuana is the top cash crop in a dozen states, the report states.

The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter-century despite an anti-drug effort by law enforcement.

Those numbers are shocking. Pot is worth $35 billion dollars a year? It's worth more than the value of grapes, vegetables and hay combined? It's amazing to think that the government is losing out on all that tax revenue due to the black market which they helped create. The economic impact of this misguided social policy is unconscionable.

Predictably, the propogandists at the White House Office of National Drug Control policy don't want to hear it.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, cited examples of foreign countries that have struggled with big crops used to produce cocaine and heroin.

"Coca is Colombia's largest cash crop, and that hasn't worked out for them, and opium poppies are Afghanistan's largest crop, and that has worked out disastrously for them," Riley said. "I don't know why we would venture down that road."

Riiiiight. Is that why opium production is sky-rocketing in Afghanistan?

"It's almost the devil's own problem," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told Congress last month. "Right now the issue is stability. . . . Going in there in itself and attacking the drug trade actually feeds the instability that you want to overcome."

"Attacking the problem directly in terms of the drug trade . . . would undermine the attempt to gain popular support in the region," agreed Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. "There's a real conflict, I think."

Not only do I give you definitive proof that the War on Some drugs has had a huge and devestating impact on the economy, I give you one more reason why the Bush admin should get the hell out of Afghanistn. It's a two-for-one kind of deal.

But Mr. Riley also mentioned something about Columbia? The drug war has had a devestating impact on Columbia. What the US government has done to Columbia's people and the environment in the name of the War on Some Drugs is criminal.

Since early January, pilots from DynCorp, working under contract to the U.S. State Department and under the supervision of the Colombian National Police, have been spraying glyphosate over indigenous and Afro-Colombian villages in the fragile rainforests of Chocó on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Ostensibly they are working to eradicate the coca crops that have sprung up in the region in recent years, as fumigations to the south in Putumayo, Guaviare, and Narino have pushed coca cultivation into new areas, and the utter destruction of local communities and economies has forced more and more people into the lower rungs of the cocaine economy. Rain recently forced a temporary halt to the fumigations, but they are slated to resume once the rain stops.

The reason why "it hasn't worked out for" Columbia is your government's insistence on using chemical warfare to fight the War on Some Drugs, among many other things.

Liberal Approach to Cannabis Pays Off In Great Britain

While I do not honestly believe that fewer marijuana smokers is necessarily a good thing, I am happy to report that Great Britain has fewer marijuana smokers than three years ago.
I would prefer to see more marijuana smokers and less alcoholics. But I will take my victories where I see them.

This article goes along with my personal belief that the black market is the most profitable way to market drugs. How many times does your forward thinking pot smoker try to cut down the cost of his habit by purchasing a large quantity of an illegal drug and then resell smaller portions? Allow me to demonstrate. Suppose you can buy a theoretical 100 gram bag of marijuana AKA demon weed for $100* (with a production value of about 50 cents, if that). You know that you can repackage the demon weed into 10 bags and sell each bag for $15. If you have a lot of friends that lack drug connections, it is quite easy to sell your bags for a tidy profit. Our imaginary drug dealer has made a profit $50 on his imaginary purchase or maybe he only makes $25 but he gets his own smoke for free. Not bad for an initial $100 investment.

Is it possible to make this much money on a legal drug such as alcohol?

Whoever said crime doesn't pay?

*I pulled these numbers out of my butt. Weed costs more than that and nobody sells 10 gram bags. But for the sake of argument, bear with me.