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The “something to toke about” session is almost over, guys.
For this series of four columns, city editor Jacob Boon and I agreed to skip the “should weed be legal” question and jump directly to the reality of its recreational and medical use.
In previous columns, I bought pot at a price of $25 for three grams, medical users enjoyed edibles despite their current illegal status and my friends got it on with weed lube. Legal or not, that’s the truth of our cannabis culture.
This week for the final installment of the series, I want you to entertain the following thought experiment. Perhaps you’ve already done so while hitting a bong. Well pull out the water pipe and let’s brainstorm this one together: What could legalizing marijuana do for the Nova Scotian economy?
We know the cannabis industry is already contributing to our economy in a more covert, non-official capacity than if it were decriminalized nationally. But how exactly decriminalization would affect our local economy would depend on how it’s regulated and taxed.
Let’s look at some possibilities. A 2012 study from Simon Fraser University estimated legalizing BC bud alone would generate $2.5 billion in taxes and licensing fees over a five-year period, assuming a market of 400,000 customers. Washington State estimated it would make $1.9 billion over the same time frame with 360,000 annual customers—roughly the population of Halifax.
We don’t have anywhere close to the number of people in BC or Washington, what with our outmigration and aging population, but think how demographics might change if federal laws allowed the pot market to flourish. In Colorado, the newly legal industry is attracting young people—from weed techies to strain nerds to pot bartenders, also known as bud-tenders. (Cute, right?)
To daydream the implications of decriminalization, I called up Chris Enns, who I like to think of as Halifax’s Jesus of pot. Enns spreads the good word during afternoon vape sessions at his Gottingen Street compassionate club.
If weed were decriminalized tomorrow, he says, the first thing Nova Scotia would notice would be a quick upswing in the number of producers, and the amount each producer grows. The main deterrent to entering the market is fear of prosecution, and if you’re not worried about jail time, you’re not going to be worried about volume either, he reasons.
The majority of the bud you can buy here is imported from other provinces, Enns says. This surprised me, but it aligned with what the dealer from the first weed column told me.
If local production increased, imagine the job creation. Along with plant managers, and delivery workers, there would be seasonal jobs, Enns says: “Around harvest season you need half a dozen friends to take care of production.” Licensed medical producers are already creating jobs like these in other provinces, although strict federal regulations are certainly squeezing some
producers.
Imagine the secondary markets. Demand for extracts (weed lube, for example) and edibles, which are illegal both for licensed and recreational users, is nonetheless exploding, Enns says. The Colorado tourism industry is blossoming, and so could ours. And prosecuting growers and sellers wouldn’t be such a drain on the already overburdened justice system.
As for price, “It’s like any other commodity,” Enns explains. Initially at least the price of recreational product would increase, he anticipates, due to heightened interest—but as the number of producers increases the supply should even out with demand.
In a decriminalized market, Enns argues Nova Scotia could retain some of the oil workers who head out west. He likes to tell people they could match the money they make in Alberta by converting their 10-by-10 foot bedroom into a grow operation.
I’m not sure how true that is, but any retention of young workers, however slight, is worth legalization in my book. We can dream, right?
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This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.
In the prohibitionist’s world, anybody who consumes the slightest amount of marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own homes are “stoners” and “dopers” that need to be incarcerated in order to to protect society.
In their world, any marijuana use equates to marijuana abuse, and it is their God given duty to worry about “saving us all” from the “evils” of marijuana use.
Who are they to tell us we can’t choose marijuana, the safer choice instead of alcohol for relaxation, after a long, hard day, in the privacy of our own homes?
People who use marijuana are smart, honest, hard working, educated, and successful people too, who “follow the law” also.(except for their marijuana consumption under it’s current prohibition of course) .
Not the stereotypical live at home losers prohibitionists make us out to be. We are doctors, lawyers, professors, movie stars, and politicians too.
Several Presidents of The United States themselves, along with Justin Trudeau, Bill Gates, and Carl Sagan have all confessed to their marijuana use. As have a long and extensive list of successful people throughout history at one point or other in their lives.
Although that doesn’t mean a dam thing to people who will make comments like “dopers” and “stoners” about anybody who uses the slightest amount of Marijuana although it is way safer than alcohol.
To these people any use equals abuse, and that is really ignorant and full of hypocrisy. While our society promotes, advertises, and even glorifies alcohol consumption like it’s an All American pastime.
There is nothing worse about relaxing with a little marijuana after a long hard day than having a drink or two of alcohol.
So come off those high horses of yours. Who are you to dictate to the rest of society that we can’t enjoy Marijuana, the safer choice over alcohol, in the privacy of our own homes?
We’ve worked real hard our whole lives to provide for our loved ones. We don’t appreciate prohibitionists trying to impose their will and morals upon us all.
Has a marijuana user ever forced you to use it? Probably not. So nobody has the right to force us not to either.
Don’t try to impose your morality and “clean living” upon all of us with Draconian Marijuana Laws, and we won’t think you’re such prohibitionist hypocrites.
Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!
The “War on Marijuana” has been a complete and utter failure. It is the largest component of the broader yet equally unsuccessful “War on Drugs” that has cost our country over a trillion dollars.
Instead of The United States wasting Billions upon Billions more of our tax dollars fighting a never ending “War on Marijuana”, lets generate Billions of dollars, and improve the deficit instead. It’s a no brainer.
The Prohibition of Marijuana has also ruined the lives of many of our loved ones. In numbers greater than any other nation, our loved ones are being sent to jail and are being given permanent criminal records which ruin their chances of employment for the rest of their lives, and for what reason?
Marijuana is much safer to consume than alcohol. Yet do we lock people up for choosing to drink?
Even The President of the United States has used marijuana. Has it hurt his chances at succeeding in life? If he had gotten caught by the police during his college years, he may have very well still been in prison today! Beyond that, he would then be fortunate to even be able to find a minimum wage job that would consider hiring him with a permanent criminal record.Let’s end this hypocrisy now!
The government should never attempt to legislate morality by creating victim-less marijuana “crimes” because it simply does not work and costs the taxpayers a fortune.
Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!
Jesus did not use cannabis http://www.kotipetripaavola.com/cannabisandbible.html
Living in HRM I should be using it but not yet