[herbie]

Quote:

It's been the Ontario Supreme Court that has, for all intents and purposes, been determining how personal amounts of marijuana are dealt with, well in Ontario anyway.

That means the courts are still dealing with simple possession then doesn't it? Time to put an end to that bullshit was 50 years ago.
Here in BC people have moved beyond decriminalization to outright legalization, the percentage increases with every poll taken. Well into majority numbers now.
Let people grow a small number of plants.
License marginal farmers grow a small plot and sell thru the gov't Liquor Stores.
Stomp on those who break those limits.

[andyt]

Brock maintains that the cops never charge just for simple possession on it's own, but only as an ancillary to other charges. That doesn't jibe with the fact that possession charges are way up since Reformacon came to power.

[EyeBrock]

andyt wrote:

Brock maintains that the cops never charge just for simple possession on it's own, but only as an ancillary to other charges. That doesn't jibe with the fact that possession charges are way up since Reformacon came to power.

I didn't quite say that andy. The word 'never' is way too final and not something I said. The fact is that there's way more weed around than 10 years ago.

Grow-ops have taken weed production to an industrial level. There's an awful lot of people not getting charged when weed is found on them. But you 'aint interested in debate, you just want to stir the shit on reformacons.

[peck420]

Eyebrock,

I have seen many 'quoted numbers' (unfortunately from pro-legalisation sites, so not worth posting) that claim a drastic increase from 1992-2002 and a continued, though not as drastic increase from 2002-present.

Which completely contradicts my real life experience with marijuana. I, nor any person I know, has every been charged with simple possession. The people that have been charged with possession have also been charged with trafficking, etc.

If anybody had paid access to StatsCan, I'm sure we could find the truth rather quickly.

[EyeBrock]

All I can go on is what I see. You can talk yourself to being arrested for anything. Trafficking means 30 gms of weed and that's an awfully big bag of weed.

[raydan]

peck420 wrote:

Eyebrock,

I have seen many 'quoted numbers' (unfortunately from pro-legalisation sites, so not worth posting) that claim a drastic increase from 1992-2002 and a continued, though not as drastic increase from 2002-present.

Which completely contradicts my real life experience with marijuana. I, nor any person I know, has every been charged with simple possession. The people that have been charged with possession have also been charged with trafficking, etc.

If anybody had paid access to StatsCan, I'm sure we could find the truth rather quickly.

I work for StatCan... but I still don't have access.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

herbie wrote:

Quote:

It's been the Ontario Supreme Court that has, for all intents and purposes, been determining how personal amounts of marijuana are dealt with, well in Ontario anyway.

That means the courts are still dealing with simple possession then doesn't it? Time to put an end to that bullshit was 50 years ago.
Here in BC people have moved beyond decriminalization to outright legalization, the percentage increases with every poll taken. Well into majority numbers now.
Let people grow a small number of plants.
License marginal farmers grow a small plot and sell thru the gov't Liquor Stores.
Stomp on those who break those limits.

Actually, this time around, the SCoO told the fed they had to change their crime bill in regards to medicinal marijuana or else marijuana would effectively become legal to possess and grow for anybody in Ontario.
They have until March 5-6 IIRC.

However, I strongly agree with your sentiment.

[Curtman]

EyeBrock wrote:

All I can go on is what I see. You can talk yourself to being arrested for anything. Trafficking means 30 gms of weed and that's an awfully big bag of weed.

It's not an increase that can be attributed to the Harperites. I hope they don't have that kind of control over our police yet. It's just a sign that the war on drugs will never ever be won until we regulate, educate, and tax. It's the vast majority of ALL drug crimes.

30 grams is less than what you'd expect to harvest from a single plant. It's a couple weeks supply for a heavy user.

EDIT: You don't need paid access to statscan to see the report this is based on.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2009002/article/10847-eng.htm

[PublicAnimalNo9]

EyeBrock wrote:

All I can go on is what I see. You can talk yourself to being arrested for anything. Trafficking means 30 gms of weed and that's an awfully big bag of weed.

An ounce is awfully big? That barely fills a sandwich baggie, depending on one's supplier of course

[1Peg]

andyt wrote:

I've got to admit I don't get it. Govts are scrambling to deal with deficits, and here's something that could increase govt revenues (not just taxes on pot, but income taxes on pot business) and reduce expenditures (police, court, jails, lost productivity, etc). It seems like a no brainer to me.

I remember reading somewhere in 2007 that BC's "pot industry" was worth 4 billion annually. Now factor in the rest of the country.... Lots of tax money.

[1Peg]

EyeBrock wrote:

All I can go on is what I see. You can talk yourself to being arrested for anything. Trafficking means 30 gms of weed and that's an awfully big bag of weed.

A pound is a big bag of weed, fills a large freezer bag

an OZ is a very small amount

[PublicAnimalNo9]

1Peg wrote:

andyt wrote:

I've got to admit I don't get it. Govts are scrambling to deal with deficits, and here's something that could increase govt revenues (not just taxes on pot, but income taxes on pot business) and reduce expenditures (police, court, jails, lost productivity, etc). It seems like a no brainer to me.

I remember reading somewhere in 2007 that BC's "pot industry" was worth 4 billion annually. Now factor in the rest of the country.... Lots of tax money.

As I've argued, with it costing the roughly the same to produce 1 gram of weed as it does to produce 1 cigarette (.8 grams of tobacco in a king size), the gov't could tax the crap out of it, even moreso than cigarettes and still be well below current street prices. Think of what a large pack of smokes costs these days. That's only 2/3oz if they're king size. If the gov't used the same cost scale as tobacco and treated the cultivation, distribution and sale the same, they could tax the living shit out of it to $50/oz.
Smokers would be ecstatic. The gov't would have a new source of revenue and growers, while not necessarily getting rich, would still be making good money, only legally.
However, one should keep in mind that the $4B annually would be at current street prices. And of course, the price is always worked out based on the street cost of a gram. Or it used to be anyway.

[1Peg]

PublicAnimalNo9 wrote:

1Peg wrote:

andyt wrote:

I've got to admit I don't get it. Govts are scrambling to deal with deficits, and here's something that could increase govt revenues (not just taxes on pot, but income taxes on pot business) and reduce expenditures (police, court, jails, lost productivity, etc). It seems like a no brainer to me.

I remember reading somewhere in 2007 that BC's "pot industry" was worth 4 billion annually. Now factor in the rest of the country.... Lots of tax money.

As I've argued, with it costing the roughly the same to produce 1 gram of weed as it does to produce 1 cigarette (.8 grams of tobacco in a king size), the gov't could tax the crap out of it, even moreso than cigarettes and still be well below current street prices. Think of what a large pack of smokes costs these days. That's only 2/3oz if they're king size. If the gov't used the same cost scale as tobacco and treated the cultivation, distribution and sale the same, they could tax the living shit out of it to $50/oz.
Smokers would be ecstatic. The gov't would have a new source of revenue and growers, while not necessarily getting rich, would still be making good money, only legally.
However, one should keep in mind that the $4B annually would be at current street prices. And of course, the price is always worked out based on the street cost of a gram. Or it used to be anyway.

Interesting. I never realized it could be so cheap. Thanks for the info.