Mary J should be legalized and taxed immediatly if for no other reason than to piss off the US! They screw us with illegal duties on tomatoes, lumber and a host of other products, let us show them we still have some self initive and take our own path.
the above is a little off base but the legalization and taxation in BC would be a great idea.
Right now every year in BC over $1 billion, yes billion is grown and exported or consumed every year. Yet the only people making money are criminals. Stats in BC show that 1 in 3 people smoke mary J at least once a month! Mary J is less dangerous than alcohol and tabacco by a large degree. Yet alcohol and tabacco is freely available and taxed. Putting a tax on the legal trade of marijuana will take the money out of the criminals pockets, allow normal people to take their personal free choice to put whatever they want into their own lungs and not have to worry about being arrested for it. but best of all the tax dollars generated would help offset any of the health issues that are already arising from the current illegal use in which no funding is being raised. With a 10 percent tax applied to the Mary J in BC alone the money raised would help pay for all the budget shortfalls the hospitals, schools and other institutions now face due to cutbacks by the provincial government. Also the tourism industry from south of the border would bring in much american $$ as other people wishing to excersise freedom of choice chose to smoke Canadian weed.
The only stipulation I would put on the sale would be an age requirment. It would be the same as the legal drinking age that each province has established for its citizens.
To those morons who have probably never even sampled Mary J yet want it kept illegal your biggest arguement that marijuana damages your brain is just plain false propaganda of the failed American drug war. In my close circle of friends, we all went to university, all smoked weed every single day, sometimes more than once and we all graduated on time, we all hold jobs( 1 lawyer, 2 police officers, 2 business owners, 1 draftsman, 1 programmer, 1 special effects guru) have families and no criminal records or health problems. The false propaganda that follows marijuana is just that, false. The only reason mary J is still illegal is the doing of our paranoid friends to the south.
Did you know that Canada has allowed DEA agents to set up shop in Vancouver to conduct investigations on Canadian citizens?