Over the Edge °- November 2ist 2012

SENSIBLE POLICING ACT

LEILA MAHEIDDINIBONAB

STUDENT LIFE EDITOR

Earlier this month, voters in Colorado
and Washington voted to legalize
recreational use of marijuana for those
21 years and over, while the state of
Massachusetts became the 18th state to
vote to legalize medicinal marijuana.
Just as with our neighbours down south,
the support for marijuana\is rising here
in British Columbia, with 73% support
for legalization and decriminalization
according to a poll conducted by Forum
Research Inc.

Dana Larsen, who has been touring BC
since the beginning of the year to promote
the Sensible Policing Act, noted similar
numbers during his stop at UNBC on
November 9.

The Vancouver-born Larsen started his
advocacy by co-founding a club called the
League for Ethical Action on Drugs while
studying at Simon Fraser University and,
after his graduation, became the editor of
Cannabis Culture Magazine fromml994
to 2004. He was a founding member
of both the Canadian Marijuana Party
and the BC Marijuana Party, running as
candidate for each in 2000 and 2001
before joining the New Democratic Party
in 2003 and.founding a group called End
Prohibition. Staying activesthrowgh the
ensuing years, he opened the Vancouver
Medical Cannabis Dispensary, which now
has 2 locations and provides medical-
grade marijuana products to over 3500
registered patients.

“Other than the laws etting worse,
many other things have gotten better for
our movement for cannabis culture,”
says Larsen, explaining that right now
the public is with the movement, adding
the Health Officers Council of BC voted
to endorse Stop the Violence BC and
called for regulation of illegal substances
including marijuana.

While the laws governing cannabis exist at
the federal level and can’t be changed by
the provincial government, the provincial
attorney general can be instructed to
inform police agencies to put cannabis
related search, seizures, detainments,
and arrests on the bottom of their list of

priorities. The Sensible Policing Act
would effectively decriminalize cannabis
possession in British Columbia.

The law that Larsen is working to enact
is a grassroots initiative referendum,
something that will only workyin BC
because it is the only province with that
option thanks to the Recall and Initiative
Act for  citizen-initiated |‘Teferendum.
“There’s far more opposition to the
cannabis laws than there was opposition to
the HST laws in British Columbia. We’re
polling way better than they did in terms
of public support,” Larsen continued.

The main purpose of this law, the Sensible
Policing Act, is to have» “effective
allocation of provincial police resources,
[the] establishment of a commission to
study cannabis policy [and a] request
to the Government of Canada to allow
Provincial regulation of cannabis” much
like the regulation of alcohol and tobacco.

“J think the legalization of marijuana is a
good idea. It reduces the stigma toward
people who use it medically so people
can actually be able to go into clinics and
request it when nothing else is working”
says Adrian,* a fourth year student at
UNBC.

The cannabis plant has a long history of
use as medicine dating back to 2700 BCE,
and»has a wide range of medicinal and
therapeutic applications. Many people,
when thinking of medical cannabis, have
the image of a joint, but there are new
products that have a cannabis base (such
as creams and lotions) that produce no
cognitive alteration and are changing the
face of medicinal cannabis.
Well-documented as a treatment for
glaucoma, gastrointestinakewillness, an
ameliorator of nauseaand vomiting, as well
as a hunger stimulant, medical cannabis
has been used®to help people suffering
through AIDS or chemotherapy as well as
other illnesses like arthritis, epilepsy, sleep
apnea, Alzheimer’s, sickle-cell disease
and anorexia nervosa. While medical
cannabis is illegal in most countries,
many governments allow treatment with
synthetic cannabinoids such as Marinol,
which have a higher THC content that the

cannabis plant products would. “I’ve been
on three different anti-anxiety medications
and different anti-depressants. I can’t
request marijuana and the doctor I go to
will not approve it because it’s such a
specialized drug in the medical field,” says
Adrian.

Tn Canada we have a federally-run medical
cannabis program which was established
in 2001 by Health Canada. The cannabis
distributedsby Health Canada is grown by
a company called Prairie Plant Systems
Tne. which is the sole supplier of medicinal
cannabis in Canada. Grown in an
underground mine, the cannabis provided
by Prairie Plant has been contaminated
by heavy metals in the past and there has
been a large outcry from patients about the
low quality of the cannabis as well as the
cutting of theycannabis with fill in order to
make it less potent.

The Harper administration recently nixed
the idea of reforming Canada’s cannabis
laws. On the same day that Colorado
and Washington voted in the use of
recreational cannabis, Stephen Harper’s
Mandatory Minimums for Marijuana and
Drug Offences came into effect. Anyone
selling more than 3 kilos at a time, such as
Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, now fall
under those laws and can be incarcerated
for 6 months. It’s not just the owners that
fall under this law but the staff as well.
Hey Ben, leave this line in for spacing and

“1 buy from a guy who grows his own
Because he has severe pain. It’s about the
only way to make suré my weed doesn’t
come. fromthe gangs in the city,” says
Alex,* a fifth year student at UNBC.
Marijuana is grown all over the world, but
here in British Columbia it is a significant
crop that fuels organized crime. A report
released» by Stop the Violence says teens
find it easyto buy marijuana and pot use
among teens\is up significantly since the
1990s, despite heavy spending on drug
enforcement.

A growing coalition of policy leaders
are urging the legalization and taxation
of cannabis as a way to minimize the $7
billion dollar illegal cannabis industry that
experts say is directly linked to the spike

in gang related killings since 1997. Here
in Prince George, we have a reputation as
Canada’s most dangerous city, and yet the
legalization topic has not been breached as
a possible way to combat the crime rates.

What many people, including Dana
Larsen, are advocating is decriminalization
and future legalization of government-
regulated cannabis. “The BC government
shouldn’t be growing marijuana, but they
should be regulating it, putting rules in
place, deciding how it’s done and making
sure everything is done safely,” says
Larsen, adding that the Sensible Policing
Act mandates a council be created in order
to put the proper regulations insplace so
that cannabis is regulated in a fashion
similar to alcohokkanditobacco.

“T_would prefer to buy my weed from a
trusted source. Regulation would be great
because right now, you have to know the
dealer or know someone who has been
smoking stuff from the dealer to make
sure it’s not laced with something to make
it weigh moreyor to make it addictive,”
continues Alex.

Tt is not just the younger generation that
is responding favourably to a proposed
plan’ of regulation and taxation; the
baby *boomer generation is the group
most likely to support legalization or
decriminalization, with 73% in support of
law reform, according to Forum Research
Inc.

When talking with some of the UNBC
population there was a clear line being
heard over and over again: legalization,
taxation and funnelling of revenue
into othermplaces like healthcare, post-
secondary «education, and policing of
higher-priority crimes.

We will have to wait andsee if the proposed
Sensible Policing, Act will get enough
signatures in September 2013 to put it on
the ballot for a referendum in 2014. With
such support it will be hard not to pass the
referendum when or if it happens.

*Names have been changed

FLYNN IN SCOTLAND: RELATIONSHIPS

DEVON FLYNN

EXCHANGE STUDENT

I’m sitting in the far corner of the library,
writing this over an essay. As with most
of my writing, non-academic trumps
academic, and I begin to question the
idea of responsibility while abroad.
I’ve already touched on the tug-of-war
battle of wants vs. needs that I expect
most exchange students endure. You
want to travel, socialize, and party, to
experience the exciting life of a student,
but also that of the place and culture
around you. All the while, a burden
of academic responsibility sits heavy
on your shoulders, but you remind
yourself, “You’re here for a good time,
not a long time.” Probably the motto
of most exchange students, right? This
leads into an interesting dynamic of

relationships.

When abroad, there are relationships
you’ve yet to make, those you’ ve left on
pause back home, and even arelationship
with oneself: relieving homesickness
through internet use, Skype, or just
doing what you enjoy - in my case,
writing and travelling. If anything, my
time over here has given me the chance
to do a lot of introverted thinking (too
much, if you ask me). Take, for example,
the simple act of making friends. It’s
something we take for granted. As we
grow older, it’s no longer as simple as
giving someone a cookie like when
we were in Kindergarten. Now at 24
years old, I have become self-aware,
questioning whether I come off as too
friendly, too aloof, or even too cocky
when meeting people. Sometimes I

doubt whether I am truly content on
the few, concentrated friendships I have
made or if should make as many friends
as possible. While in another country,
you tend to value friendship more when
you have to start from scratch, even if
you have a lot more cookies to hand out
than your 5-year old self.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having
met diverse and interesting people,
but to what end? Making me feel like
my experience here is justified, that I
“lived the life’ when I have to accept
I may never see some of these people
again? Sometimes that introspection
even makes you do a double-take on
the relationships you have waiting back
home.

Various friends, family members, and
even my girlfriend wait patiently for my

return. I don’t know if anyone here will
miss me on the same level, and perhaps
that’s why I’ve been naively pressuring
myself to make strong relationships
here at Dundee. Did I leave Prince
George to experience school abroad, or
did I subconsciously want to appreciate
that I can establish those meaningful
relationships, however temporary over
here, or anywhere for that matter?
Perhaps that’s the point: to have a good
time, however short, wherever you are
and whoever you’re with.

I attempted to write a day-in-the-life-
of piece within a word count of less
than 500 words, but that proved futile.
Studying abroad is about the experience,
but also those you share them with, and
it takes a lot more than 500 words to
even begin to describe.