Cannabis or the more widely used term, marijuana, has been at the forefront of society’s controversial dialogue since it’s prohibition in the early 1900’s. Spearheaded through racist legislation, marijuana was criminalized in Canada’s House of Commons in 1923, without debate.

Some argue that cannabis is a “gateway” drug, but in a 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences it’s stated: In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a “gateway” drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and rarely the first, “gateway” drug to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.

Today, public opinion has changed and it is in the limelight.

President of the Vancouver Kush Medical Society, Tony Singh, started a medicinal cannabis dispensary in 2011 after doctor prescribed Tylenol 3 and other anti inflammatories did more to worsen his Capital Femoral Epiphysis than help the condition. After meeting barriers to access cannabis he took things into his own hands and created a reliable and safe source for patients to obtain cannabis for medical use.

In the fall of 2013, a citizen action group, Sensible BC, led the bid to have a referendum to end arrests for marijuana prohibition in BC. Their aims were to end prohibition and to create the opportunity for the citizens of BC to have a say in how drug laws are enforced in our province. With nearly 75% of British Columbians in favour of marijuana reform, they were able to meet the requirements to have a referendum. But, their attempts failed to muster the leadership and skills needed to run the massive province-wide campaign.

In 2013, the Harper government announced they would be spending 11 million dollars of taxpayer money on ads targeting cannabis. Sensible BC noted in response, “[The Canadian Government,] no longer are the proponents of the war on drugs willing to argue based on facts, they have doubled down on scare tactics aimed at maintaining the status quo.”

According to a survey done by researchers at Insights West, 87% of BC residents believe taxing marijuana would generate revenues that can be used to benefit all Canadians, such as areas in health care and education. Almost four- in- five British Columbians also think dispensaries are a safer way to sell marijuana (78%) and believe marijuana has legitimate health benefits (also 78%). Three-in-four residents (75%) think legalizing marijuana would allow police to focus on other things, instead of chasing marijuana producers and traffickers. About two thirds of British Columbians also think that marijuana should not be compared to other drugs, like cocaine or heroin (68%), that legalization will decrease gang violence (67%), and that prohibition of marijuana has failed to control production and use (66%). “BC should legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, becoming Canada’s version of Washington state”, said former BC solicitor general Kash Heed, who also served as the commanding officer of the Vancouver Police Department’s drug squad. “BC could do it in a responsible way, if there was the political will provincially.”

These sentiments have been echoed by many and increasingly so.

Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) replaced the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) on April 1st, 2014. The old legislation allowed licence holders to grow cannabis themselves or find designated growers. This new legislation essentially took away patient’s right to grow their own cannabis and created “conditions for a commercial industry that is responsible for the production and distribution of marijuana for medical purposes”, as the Harper government describes. However, many medical marijuana patients in Canada are struggling to buy cannabis under this current legislation and are turning to the black market, according to University of British Columbia study. Many patients have noted there are several prevailing issues with the new legislation; 1) affordability, the old program allowed patients to grow their own marijuana at a cost of about $2 a gram, compared to purchasing it at about $8 to $10 a gram through the new program; 2) difficulty getting a doctor’s approval in rural areas; and 3) inadequate supply from the larger companies that operate under the MMPR. Many patients, growers, and activists are noting these changes as corporations taking over medicinal cannabis, concentrating business in the hands of people with ties to the big American pharmaceutical conglomerates.

In June 2015, the City of Vancouver council voted to regulate and license the roughly 100 medical marijuana retail dispensaries in the city, becoming the first city in Canada to do so and receiving fire from the Harper Conservatives. The bylaw is set to charge retail dealers a $30,000 licence fee, which is the city’s highest permit cost, and prevent shops from operating within 300 metres of community centres, schools and other dispensaries. The bylaw does not allow the sale of edible products like pot brownies, with the exception of edible oils, which would include tinctures and capsules. What ’s all the fuss about? The United States has had its foot in the war on drugs for decades. Creating hysteria in the eig hties by the Reagan administration, today the amount spent annually in the United States on the war on drugs is more than $51,000,000,000.00. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, The prohibition of marijuana is an utter failure.

The United States wastes billions of dollars enforcing marijuana laws even for low level offenses, incarcerating and penalizing marijuana users, and denying seriously ill patients access to beneficial treatment including disproportionate targeting of blacks and Latinos at the heart of that enforcement surge.

So have things changed? Is there a resurgence of a progressive America? Alaska, Washington, and Colorado have all legalized recreational cannabis use in the last few years with Oregon as the latest state on the list. Many arguments for progressive reform include economic benefits. Combined with the savings from ending prohibition enforcement, marijuana taxation could generate revenue for federal and regional governments, an enticement that any capitalist cannot ignore.

In fact, now that cannabis is permitted in some form in 23 U.S. states, the typical flow of cannabis from Mexico has significantly been reduced and, to a growing degree, reversed. The expanding U.S. corporate pot industry is transforming the drug distribution patterns of the notorious cartels—forcing them to deal more exclusively in heroin, for example— and leading to both cultural and economic change in Mexico’s own consumption of marijuana. Two prospects may arise: a business boom for legal corporate pot producers in the U.S. and Canada and the chance to concentrate the drug war on far more deadly substances, such as cocaine, meth, and heroin.

Prohibition has proven to fuel organized crime and violence in an illegal market. Decriminalization allows some public safety and health issues to be addressed, but organized crime still has influence over the industry. Regulation allows for public safety and health. Legalization is a path to corporate oligarchies and privatized profit, which leaves the public without potential revenue.

• Eliminates the black market and illegal sales (i.e. organized crime and violence)
• Adds tax revenue to provincial coffers to use for education, health care, provincial parks, etc.
• Control the f low and availability of recreational marijuana into the commercial (taxed) market
• Provides additional legal income for licensed medical marijuana growers

• Public safety implications (i.e driving or using heavy machinery after using cannabis)

Perhaps now it is time for British Columbia and Canada to become the progressive societies that Canadians value greatly.