The Union: The Business Behind Getting High Page #5

deterring children from using,

rather than letting dealers

decide what age is appropriate ?

( Jack )

For the last ten years,

our children across

the United States have said

that it's easier to buy

illegal drugs

than it is to buy

beer and cigarettes.

( Kirk )

It's harder to get beer

because you have to go through

a regulated establishment

that's going to check ID,

that's gonna have

those safeguards in place,

that isn't just gonna

sell it to you

'cause you got

( Jack )

Guy down on the street corner,

he doesn't want to know

how old they are.

He doesn't wanna see an ID,

he says, "Show me the money."

And if they get the money,

it doesn't matter if that child

is four years old.

They're gonna get the dope.

( Kirk )

If you can't control

the sale of the product,

how on Earth are you gonna

keep it out of the hands

of kids ?

Could we be the creators

of what we now see

as some of

our biggest problems ?

Have our solutions been prelude

to our worst fears ?

The use of the criminal law

for the basis of public health

is a wholly bad idea,

no matter how you cut it.

It doesn't work-- you cannot

legislate morality.

One person can say

it's immoral to legalize it

just as much as someone

can say

it's immoral

not to legalize it.

It doesn't get you anywhere.

You have to have a rational

policy debate

by talking about

the consequences.

Now, I've had young people

tell me that,

"Well, your generation

had a martini,

"and that was your crutch,

and why can't we have

our own kind of crutch ?"

You know what ?

Why don't you be a generation

that doesn't have to have

any kind of crutch ?

( Neil )

It's a lot easier argument

if you just say,

"Oh, it's immoral."

Then you don't have to debate

why it is that alcohol kills

so many more people

than marijuana,

or why it is that tobacco

takes seven years off your life,

and we can't establish

that marijuana

does anything particularly.

If people do do drugs

and they commit crimes

around those drugs, they should,

in fact, be punished.

But you can't punish someone

for something that hurts no one.

We should legalize marijuana,

tax the hell out of it,

and put every dime back

into the health-care system.

( record scratching )

Taxation and legalization ?

Doesn't that seem

a little extreme ?

Wouldn't it be better to just

decriminalize ?

The distinction is simple.

Legalization of marijuana

makes it a product

that is legally

available to adults.

That doesn't mean that there's

unregulated distribution,

unregulated sale

and unregulated use.

The decriminalization

of marijuana

still makes it an offense.

You're not gonna go

to jail for it

under a decriminalized model,

but society is still

saying, "No, no, no, no."

It doesn't address the problems

of organized crime,

and it doesn't

create a situation

where you have retail sales.

( Jeffrey )

Decriminalization is just kind

of a goofy concept.

To say that it's legal

to own something, to use it,

to possess it, but not

to produce it or sell it,

just seems like this illogical

position because,

where did this

stuff come from ?

( Larry )

It's the worst of both worlds.

It sends out an incredibly

bad message.

It should be controlled

like alcohol, like tobacco.

( Jeffrey )

The total impact for the U.S.

budget from legalizing marijuana

and taxing it at rates like

alcohol and tobacco

is somewhere in

the 10 to $14 billion range.

( Kirk )

It can be used to pay for

health-care costs,

it can be used

to rebate to lower taxes

and give people

lower tax rates.

It can be used for highways,

for hospitals,

for national defense.

It's $14 billion,

and it can be used for whatever

its best use is.

( Norm )

The production or the

harvesting, the packaging,

the sales of marijuana

could be handled

essentially the way

we handle alcohol.

You sell to a kid, you sell

to somebody under the influence,

your license is in jeopardy.

That license ought to be hard

to get and easy to lose.

It seems to make sense.

It's a little jarring,

but nowhere are these issues

more relevant than here in BC.

Yes, marijuana is

illegal here,

and yes, police actively

pursue growers and dealers,

but that doesn't stop the market

from thriving.

It's believed that the illegal

BC marijuana-trade industry

employs anywhere

from 90 to 150,000 people,

and the product is now known

around the world.

It's even been given

its own name.

BC bud.

Bud.

( host )

BC--

Bud.

British Columbia bud.

I don't know what

you are meaning.

BC-- BC bud ?

Bud ?

( host )

You guys know

what BC bud is ?

No.

You guys know where

British Columbia is ?

No, isn't it in Britain ?

No, it's in Canada.

When I say BC

is famous for...

Pot.

Weed and hippies.

Mountains, sea.

Marijuana.

I usually think of

"The Beachcombers,"

back in the days,

but now I just think of

that BC bud.

( host )

Do you know what BC bud is ?

No.

Oh, it's really well-known.

BC bud is bud that

comes from British Columbia.

And that's why they call it

BC bud, or "beasters."

"Dude, you got the beasters ?"

"Yeah, I got the beasters,"

which means you got bud from BC.

( host )

You know what the word

"grow-op" is ?

I'd say it's pretty common

knowledge here

what a grow-op is.

People do them in their houses,

in their basements.

I'm surprised it's not

in our dictionary.

A grow-op is something that

happens inside somebody's house,

like, one of our friends

or something,

and they just grow

weed inside their house.

( host )

Do you know anybody that's

growing marijuana ?

I don't-- well, no.

Kelowna...

my hometown.

With a population

of only 100,000,

Kelowna is said to house

well over 1,000 grow-ops.

A police officer stated

in the local paper,

"If they were to bust one

grow-op every day for a year,

they would still be nowhere near

getting rid of them."

And Kelowna is not alone.

Where are they in BC--

they're everywhere.

They're in every single

corner of the province.

There is no community

in the province

that doesn't have grows

and hasn't had an increase

in grows.

The fact is that there's

thousands and thousands

and thousands of grow-ops

all over British Columbia,

and the most common thing

you hear

when they raid a grow-op is--

from the neighbors is--

"I had no idea they were

growing pot on my street."

You know, if you actually took

my estimate seriously--

that there were 17,000

grow-ops in British Columbia

in the year 2000--

if you took that seriously,

you're looking at roughly

one out of every 100

dwelling units

in British Columbia.

We need to have

a sense of that.

Not bad for a province

with a population

of only 4 million people.

It's certainly changed a great

deal from the '70s and '80s

when it was an import-

export business

to the domestic-production

business of the '90s and beyond.

That would make us

"Columbia North."

We're talking

a lot of production.

The reality is that there's

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