“Hey man…what’s happening?”
The Old Man in the Hat
Gomer Pyle, a 1960’s television sitcom character, favourite opening line was “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise”. Well, NB Liquor has recently reported that profits are down. That’s too bad. Maybe we are finally listening to the folks at the Department of Health and are living a more healthy lifestyle by drinking less. If government spends less on the social and health detriments of alcohol consumption in one department, that surely offsets revenue loss in another. However, in order for someone in government to grasp this insight they would actually have to be capable of looking at the larger picture. I have always been ambivalent about the government promoting alcohol, but I guess someone has to be responsible for regulating such a widely used social product, whatever the pros and cons.
Speaking of looking at the larger picture and regulating widely used social drugs, it is a puzzle to me as to how the most available solution to the tax revenue problem is not patently obvious to even the lowliest civil serpent. Tax the BUD. No, not the Clydesdale one, that other one. The one that everybody knows about, but simply will not acknowledge. Reefer Madness. I am not sure that this term refers to the consequences of imbibing the product or ignoring the role that it plays in modern 21st century society.
Whether or not you agree with the claims surrounding the use of marijuana- health effects, medicinal benefits, addiction potential, gateway effect etc., I think it is unarguably easy to access and is widely consumed. If it were not being consumed in quantity, it would not be so widely available. If nothing, vice always follows the law of supply and demand.
Any of you who have used the Gas Buddy web site to shop for the lowest gas price would probably not be surprised to find that a similar service exists for weed, appropriately called “Price of Weed- A Global Price Index for Marijuana”, with a helpful Law Enforcement index, New Brunswick availability and pricing duly noted.
So, what is to be done? Is alcohol good for us, no, but it is taxed in order that some benefit offsets the ill effects to society. We still consume nicotine, and the deleterious effects of this product should render it illegal. Yet, society permits the sale of tobacco products and taxes them appropriately.
If marijuana did not exist, I would not be in favour of creating it to derive a revenue from the sale of another potentially harmful substance. But it does exist. Our current regulatory framework produces the following: unregulated consumption; increasingly violent criminal enterprises; massively expensive, non productive, police interdiction and surveillance; no revenue. The simple truth of the matter is that what we are doing in the management of marijuana consumption in our society is not working and it is time to try something new. Given our fiscal realities and the black hole of enforcing laws that virtually no one is paying attention to, demands a change in tactics. It is time to legalize, regulate and tax.
