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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2012 THE VANCOUVER COURIER
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Pot laws not about all or nothing
W
hat is really at stake if British Columbia follows Washington State and Colorado and successfully legalizes
marijuana? Money, of course, that other green substance. Let’s start with the estimated value of the illicit pot growing industry here in B.C. It’s often claimed to be between $6 billion to $8 billion, a fairly rough estimate given that none of the principals are filling out any corporate tax forms or quarterly earning reports. Even if it’s lower than the estimates, it’s a huge industry. By contrast, in 2011 the entire forest industry had a value of just under $10 billion. If the local pot growing economy goes legit, we’ll see some unusual effects, only some of them strictly economic. Everyone who argues for legalization points out that we can then tax the bejezus out of marijuana. How much would that raise? In B.C., the tax rate for small businesses is 2.5 per cent, 10 per cent for big businesses. Let’s assume, very conservatively, that we get nothing but small Mom and Pop artisanal ganja growers and small-scale retailers. Let’s also take the lower $6 billion valuation of the industry. That would mean about $150 million in provincial tax revenues off the top. But wait! The cost of growing pot will drop substantially if it’s legal, and grown in the open. Maybe it won’t be that costly to sell? Except that it will be taxed at the point of sale, too. So that’s another few million bucks a year. Sin taxes, plus sales taxes, add up quickly. And that’s not even considering the federal tax implications. Then there are the personal income taxes that would be paid by those legally employed in the industry. So what about effects beyond the purely taxational? We have no grow-ops in houses, because growing outdoors or in greenhouses is cheaper, so there are a few more houses on the market than otherwise. Not enough to bring down prices, though. We have a whole lot of unemployed criminals. Some fraction of them will go legit and turn themselves into small farmers and storekeepers. Others will not make this transition. I’m thinking of the Langley man who stabbed another man to death purely out of the suspicion that the other man might have stolen his pot plants. It’s hard to imagine a ragefilled killer fitting in well at a chamber of commerce meeting. So some gangsters are going to try to move into the remaining illicit drugs, like heroin and cocaine. There might be a gang war as the crooks fight over the pieces of a smaller pie. While we’ll see more government tax revenues, this will be somewhat offset. A significant number of small businesses will close their doors. They’ll all be places that could plausibly accept a lot of cash payments: restaurants, bars, hair and nail salons, corner stores, and so on. Because in every community where there are pot growers, there is a need to launder money. In the long term, our society wouldn’t look a lot different. Some people smoke pot now, some people will never smoke it if it’s legal. (Like me.) People commit crimes now, they’re not going to stop if pot is legal. Things could be a bit more stable, both tax-and crime-wise in the long term, but it won’t turn B.C. into a magical land of unicorns and pixies. But we don’t make policy decisions based on false ideas that we will create utopias or dystopias. We should make them based on what seems like best practices. To me, it looks like things would be better with legal marijuana than with the current system. mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
MATTHEW CLAXTON
Things could be a bit more stable, both tax-and crime-wise in the long term, but it won’t turn B.C. into a magical land of unicorns and pixies.
LFL’S LACK OF PAY, DISREGARD FOR INJURY SHAMEFUL
To the editor: Re: “Reporter knocked out of LFL,” Nov. 16. I am writing about Megan Stewart’s experience with the B.C. Angels football team. I read and enjoyed her previous articles about the team and the individuals that were vying for a spot on the roster. The stories gave some background about the people who wanted to join the team instead of being another slam against the women who wished to participate. What disturbed me then and more so now after Friday’s article was the seemingly lackadaisical attitudes concerning the participants safety. The league and coaching staff seem to have no interest or concern about injuries. [The reporter’s] personal injury involving a concussion and the complete lack of safety equipment provided by the team must go against some of the rules governing sports in the province. And for no one to follow up on [her] injury is just wrong. At a time when so much is known about concussions and their long-term effects, it is disturbing how callously players are treated in a league that is trying to find mainstream success. It has to be asked if wanting to play at a higher level without remuneration and risking permanent injuries is really worth it? Rob Gill, Vancouver
IRONY AT PLAY IN KLASSEN COLUMN To the editor:
Re: “Give Vancouver neighbourhoods the tools for change,” Nov. 13. Doesn’t it seem ironic that Mike Klassen now advocates “reviving
CityPlan”? Klassen was the consultant who worked outside of city hall to register the ecodensity.ca URL for ex-mayor Sam Sullivan. A mixed NPA-Vision council majority imposed the trademarked EcoDensity™ initiative on Vancouver residents in June 2008 following on an epic seven evenings of public hearings. EcoDensity™ set out to kill CityPlan while it was still in gestation. An active multi-million-dollar “planning” exercise became inconvenient to politicians and developers long before it reached first-stage completion in 2010 with West Point Grey. There was no second stage. While the so-called Vision Implementation Review (2008-2009) tailed off into programmatic disappearance of that unwanted planning effort, the NPA-Vision axis was busy conducting funeral rites for the local committees connected to the nine Community Visions. I nominate also-ran NPA council candidate Mike Klassen for flipflop of the decade. Joseph Jones, Vancouver
HUMANS DAMAGE, NOT TREES
To the editor:
Re: “Trees great, but what about the damage they do?” Letters, Nov. 16. So trees are bothersome and cost us money to repair cracked sidewalks and clogged gutters and drains. Well, if humans really had to pay for what trees offer us for free we’d all be broke. They’re called ecosystem services. Besides sequestering carbon to make oxygen so we can breathe, trees provide shade, beauty, soil fertilizer, food, building materials, art and animal habitat — all for free. Humans provide nothing — they just use up common natural capital at a great rate and complain. Since we started walking on two
legs, humans have cut down half of the world’s forests, mostly in the last century. And there’s a third more carbon dioxide in the air than at the start of the Industrial Revolution. We desperately need trees and their saviour friends so future generations can breathe and not get totally cooked by climate change. Trees don’t destroy, humans do. We’re lucky trees are immobile or they might follow our example to rise up one day and clearcut us all. Celia Brauer, Vancouver
DEVELOPERS RUN AMOK
The editor: More and more people in Vancouver are bothered, bewildered and frustrated by a raft of buildings popping up all over town because they feel that City Hall is totally powerless and meekly bow to developers. I was raised in a region where many towns are called New town of this or that. New compared to towns going back several centuries B.C. that grew haphazardly, while these new ones were planned and built within a relatively short time in the Middle Ages. After the Second World War European and Asian towns that had been wiped out were rebuilt according to the diktats of various national governments. In other words there is in many other places a history of towns being built anew or drastically renovated according to the wishes of a political power that believed it was working for the common good. Developers had to follow strict rules or let someone else do it. But here developers — with the bestintentionsintheworldIamsure — run amok. They hide their plans from other developers and from the city, and there isn’t any concern whatsoever about how good and livable the city at large will be.
J-L Brussac Coquitlam
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Letters may be edited by the Courier for reasons of legality, taste, brevity and clarity. To be considered for publication, they must be typed, signed and include the writer’s full name (no initials), home address, and telephone number (neither of which will be published), so authorship may be verified. Send to: 1574 West Sixth Ave., Vancouver V6J 1R2 or email editor@vancourier.com
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