OTTAWA — Liberal leader Justin Trudeau wants it legalized. Canadian cops want to fine people for simple possession. Forget jobs and the economy, it seems marijuana is back on the public agenda.
Trudeau will need to be cautious, however, about making too much more of his pot plank now, or of putting off for much longer the substantive speeches on democratic reform and economic policy that will form the backbone of his platform in 2015. It’s all well and good to be gregarious. The swing voters the Liberals need to persuade will, by voting day, take his likeability for granted. He needs to start putting more meat on the bones — particularly when it comes to economic policy.
Still, there are economic implications for a Canada where pot is legal or, at the very least, smoking a joint is no longer grounds for a criminal record. One estimate puts the possible tax revenue at as much as $7.5 billion annually.
Another, a policy paper released by the British Columbia Liberals in January, estimates governments would rake in more than $4 billion a year in tax revenue if marijuana were legalized. It said legalization would also create “thousands of new direct and indirect employment opportunities.”
But while experts agree that making pot a taxable product could line government coffers, they are skeptical about the other economic benefits of legalizing it.
“There might be some jobs created, but I don’t think it will be particularly important,” said Stephen Easton, an economist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver who published a paper on the economic potential of legalizing marijuana in British Columbia.
Today’s agricultural practices are heavily mechanized and don’t employ huge numbers of people, he explained. At the same time, marijuana distribution will inevitably be overseen by existing bodies — such as liquor control boards — leaving few opportunities there for new jobs.
Easton said government profits would depend on the tax rate and the ability of police to crack down on those buying pot on the black market. At the upper end, he speculates a marijuana tax could “raise roughly the same amount of money as the tobacco tax.” According to data compiled by Physicians for a Smoke Free Canada, this figure was just under $7.5 billion in 2011-2012.
Canada’s big three tobacco companies — Rothmans Benson & Hedges, Imperial Tobacco and JTI-MacDonald — either did not respond or would not weigh in on their potential role in a hypothetical future in which marijuana was legal.
Timothy Dewhirst isn’t surprised. The University of Guelph professor who specializes in tobacco marketing and public policy said the industry is generally mum on marijuana legalization.
But “if you look historically, they certainly recognized in the event of marijuana legalization, that it would be a logical new industry for them,” he said, noting market research and planning documents made public over the years through major lawsuits against tobacco companies in the United States offer some insight.
Dewhirst said the documents show former U.S. giant Philip Morris went so far as to trademark the name “Marley” after Reggae artist and prolific pot partaker Bob Marley, though the company at the time maintained it was for “competitive” reasons.
Tobacco companies, he said, have also mused about a two-pronged strategy whereby marijuana cigarettes could be sold in the drug’s pure form as well as a tobacco-marijuana blend.
Tobacco companies have also closely monitored ballot initiatives in the United States related to marijuana legalization — the same sort of ballot questions that recently led to the legalization of pot in Colorado and Washington.
The documents also suggest tobacco production infrastructure could be adapted to marijuana production, he said, adding the industry nonetheless raised concerns about potential blowback from shareholders.
Dennis Travale, the mayor of Norfolk County, Ont., in Canada’s tobacco belt, said tobacco farmers might expand into pot production if they thought there was money to be made. However, many got out of the tobacco business and sold their equipment when the government cracked down on smoking, scrapped production quotas in 2008 and encouraged farmers to diversify.
About 150 large tobacco growers remain and while the industry bounced back — he said there isn’t a single crop with a higher return than tobacco — most Canadian tobacco is now shipped outside the country.
“If it’s legal, the farmers will look at it, and if there’s money in it, they will grow it,” Travale said.
He agreed, however, that the potential for new jobs is slim due to new technologies. Also, he said, the work isn’t popular among Canadians — the region employs about 4,000 temporary foreign workers — and the children of aging farmers aren’t interested in pursuing the family business.
Not familiar enough with marijuana counter-culture, Travale couldn’t say whether young people might be more interested in the work if the crop were weed.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) recently presented a proposal that would give police the option to fine those caught with 30 grams of pot or less, but the economic implications of this are unclear.
Despite an ongoing national conversation on the rising cost of policing and the various ways of reining it in, experts suggest fining isn’t necessarily a revenue generator.
Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association — which isn’t entirely on board with the CACP proposal — said there isn’t a police force in the country that currently has control over its own revenue from fines.
Most of it goes into the general coffers of the province or municipality, he said, noting it’s a huge misconception to even suggest that police departments put more resources into units like traffic enforcement because of the potential for revenue.
He said police departments generally don’t spend a lot of time enforcing simple possession violations which diminishes the argument that having to charge people for possession creates a lot of costly paperwork. If anything, he said, fines will mean more paperwork and court costs since people will inevitably contest them.
He believes the “legal motivation” behind the proposal is to give police an option when faced with a situation like the one they find themselves in every April 20, the day when thousands of pot smokers toke up en masse in cities across North America in support of legalization.
“Often, police officers are placed in situations where it’s not practical to turn around and arrest a whole bunch of people for simply possessing marijuana,” Stamatakis said.
“It creates a lot of conflict between many other people in the public that expect us to take enforcement action.”
Trudeau will need to be cautious, however, about making too much more of his pot plank now, or of putting off for much longer the substantive speeches on democratic reform and economic policy that will form the backbone of his platform in 2015. It’s all well and good to be gregarious. The swing voters the Liberals need to persuade will, by voting day, take his likeability for granted. He needs to start putting more meat on the bones — particularly when it comes to economic policy.
Still, there are economic implications for a Canada where pot is legal or, at the very least, smoking a joint is no longer grounds for a criminal record. One estimate puts the possible tax revenue at as much as $7.5 billion annually.
Another, a policy paper released by the British Columbia Liberals in January, estimates governments would rake in more than $4 billion a year in tax revenue if marijuana were legalized. It said legalization would also create “thousands of new direct and indirect employment opportunities.”
But while experts agree that making pot a taxable product could line government coffers, they are skeptical about the other economic benefits of legalizing it.
“There might be some jobs created, but I don’t think it will be particularly important,” said Stephen Easton, an economist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver who published a paper on the economic potential of legalizing marijuana in British Columbia.
Today’s agricultural practices are heavily mechanized and don’t employ huge numbers of people, he explained. At the same time, marijuana distribution will inevitably be overseen by existing bodies — such as liquor control boards — leaving few opportunities there for new jobs.
Easton said government profits would depend on the tax rate and the ability of police to crack down on those buying pot on the black market. At the upper end, he speculates a marijuana tax could “raise roughly the same amount of money as the tobacco tax.” According to data compiled by Physicians for a Smoke Free Canada, this figure was just under $7.5 billion in 2011-2012.
Canada’s big three tobacco companies — Rothmans Benson & Hedges, Imperial Tobacco and JTI-MacDonald — either did not respond or would not weigh in on their potential role in a hypothetical future in which marijuana was legal.
Timothy Dewhirst isn’t surprised. The University of Guelph professor who specializes in tobacco marketing and public policy said the industry is generally mum on marijuana legalization.
But “if you look historically, they certainly recognized in the event of marijuana legalization, that it would be a logical new industry for them,” he said, noting market research and planning documents made public over the years through major lawsuits against tobacco companies in the United States offer some insight.
Dewhirst said the documents show former U.S. giant Philip Morris went so far as to trademark the name “Marley” after Reggae artist and prolific pot partaker Bob Marley, though the company at the time maintained it was for “competitive” reasons.
Tobacco companies, he said, have also mused about a two-pronged strategy whereby marijuana cigarettes could be sold in the drug’s pure form as well as a tobacco-marijuana blend.
Tobacco companies have also closely monitored ballot initiatives in the United States related to marijuana legalization — the same sort of ballot questions that recently led to the legalization of pot in Colorado and Washington.
The documents also suggest tobacco production infrastructure could be adapted to marijuana production, he said, adding the industry nonetheless raised concerns about potential blowback from shareholders.
Dennis Travale, the mayor of Norfolk County, Ont., in Canada’s tobacco belt, said tobacco farmers might expand into pot production if they thought there was money to be made. However, many got out of the tobacco business and sold their equipment when the government cracked down on smoking, scrapped production quotas in 2008 and encouraged farmers to diversify.
About 150 large tobacco growers remain and while the industry bounced back — he said there isn’t a single crop with a higher return than tobacco — most Canadian tobacco is now shipped outside the country.
“If it’s legal, the farmers will look at it, and if there’s money in it, they will grow it,” Travale said.
He agreed, however, that the potential for new jobs is slim due to new technologies. Also, he said, the work isn’t popular among Canadians — the region employs about 4,000 temporary foreign workers — and the children of aging farmers aren’t interested in pursuing the family business.
Not familiar enough with marijuana counter-culture, Travale couldn’t say whether young people might be more interested in the work if the crop were weed.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) recently presented a proposal that would give police the option to fine those caught with 30 grams of pot or less, but the economic implications of this are unclear.
Despite an ongoing national conversation on the rising cost of policing and the various ways of reining it in, experts suggest fining isn’t necessarily a revenue generator.
Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association — which isn’t entirely on board with the CACP proposal — said there isn’t a police force in the country that currently has control over its own revenue from fines.
Most of it goes into the general coffers of the province or municipality, he said, noting it’s a huge misconception to even suggest that police departments put more resources into units like traffic enforcement because of the potential for revenue.
He said police departments generally don’t spend a lot of time enforcing simple possession violations which diminishes the argument that having to charge people for possession creates a lot of costly paperwork. If anything, he said, fines will mean more paperwork and court costs since people will inevitably contest them.
He believes the “legal motivation” behind the proposal is to give police an option when faced with a situation like the one they find themselves in every April 20, the day when thousands of pot smokers toke up en masse in cities across North America in support of legalization.
“Often, police officers are placed in situations where it’s not practical to turn around and arrest a whole bunch of people for simply possessing marijuana,” Stamatakis said.
“It creates a lot of conflict between many other people in the public that expect us to take enforcement action.”
