Sure. The reality is that while a great deal of our domestic harvest goes to the United States, it comprises only a very small fraction of their market. I don't think we need to be beholden to American policies that have been proven failures over the last 25 years and longer. We have to chart our own course. If we choose not to chart our own course, but instead to follow the failed policies of the past, we'll end up with the same failures on our street.
I used to practise criminal law in Detroit, Michigan, before I moved to Vancouver. I've seen the future of mandatory minimum sentences, an increased militarization of our police forces, an expansion in our prison populations leading to recruitment into gangs. That's the future we have in front of us. That's the future we can choose not to take.
I should also point out that while the bulk of our marijuana goes south, and we know what comes back up north as a result, a lot of it is consumed right here. A conservative estimate is about 10 million grams of marijuana are consumed by Canadians each month, so it's not as if we don't have a significant demand in our country for drugs.
The problem is we can't do anything to address that demand until we take the blinders off and stop putting enforcement ahead of the other methods we have. A dollar invested in enforcement is wasted. A dollar invested in prevention and treatment makes a difference to the generation to come.