I love alternate reality stories. The 'what if the world was changed' interests everyone, but most people are interested in the big questions rather than the little ones- 'what if there was another terrorist attack?' or 'what if North Korea used a nuclear weapon?' are examples. I'm much more interested in what happens when something a little more subtle is changed, like Canada going from near total decriminalization of marijuana as I understand it is now to total legalization and how it will effect the United States.
I don't have much to back up this 'what if' scenario, it's just my opinion, but I'd love to hear any and all critiques. I am going to write this as if it were a history essay from a future student of early 21st century history.
The legalization of marijuana in Canada produced major, fundamental social and economic changes, both at home and, eventually, globally.
The Marijuana Legalization Act passed Parliament and was signed into law on Monday, September 25, 2005 after many pressures from various advocacy groups, along with some savvy economic prescience found enough ministers to sign on.
There were four immediate effects:
First, some small-scale rioting from clashes between anti-drug protest groups and celebrating marijuana legalization advocates caused early critics to immediately claim that the act had caused an increase in crime and demanded immediate repeal.
Second, some smaller Canadian towns, particularly very religious communities, passed their own local anti-marijuana laws which were immediately contested and went into a long period of litigation.
Third, many farmers, sensing a new cash crop, dumped their crops in favor of cannabis, causing minor price increases in soybean and corn futures.
Fourth, a 10% drop in tobacco sales nationwide in Canada from people smoking fewer cigarettes because they could cheaply and easily get marijuana to partially satisfy cravings.
Many of the initial criticisms, however, did not pan out. The riots dissipated fairly quickly, the workforce did not elect to 'spend all day sitting at home getting high instead of working' as some editorial columns of the time suggested. Productivity, in fact, increased as there were fewer firings for drug use as it was no longer considered drug use.
Big Tobacco was not very concerned with the drop in their sales, as they had used their already-existant industry to move in on cannabis very quickly and efficiently to market it themselves. Within months, convenience stores across Canada were stocking marijuana-filled cigarettes next to the tobacco cigarettes.
Citing both high marijuana taxes (something which the government began reaping the benefits of) and the loss to their tobacco side of their industry in switching to cannabis kept the price very high. A typical pack of Marlboro Green, a carton containing 10 'class A' marijuana cigarettes would sell for $20 and was considered somewhat of a boutique buy.
More popular and much cheaper were marijuana-laced tobacco products, both in chewable and smokable form which would give the user a mild high along with the nicotine buzz and had the added advantage (to Big Tobacco) of creating new nicotine addicts who would pay the premium prices of the laced products (generally a dollar more than the standard cigarette pack).
It was true that people could cultivate the plant on their own, but few were interested in the investment of time and fewer still were successful in growing the plant on an individual basis and small businesses were easily driven out of it due to the pricing and availability of the corporate product.
Meanwhile, across the border, in the United States, farmers in border states began hearing about their Canadian colleagues making a lot of money with cannabis crops. Slowly, within the farmer groups, a movement begins for American legalization.
Realizing that they could make an even bigger killing in the U.S. markets, the still-Big Tobacco-only in the U.S. companies funneled money into the legalization campaigns, blitzing the media with statistics about the safety of marijuana and the benefits of medicinal marijuana, urging people to put pressure on their representatives.
With potential tax revenue loss in the billions, the U.S. government faced the embarassing prospect of losing its already faltering GDP to Canada. Despite many protests from the Bush administration, eventually even they had to sign on to the cannabis legalization campaign when polls showed that fully 80% of Americans favored taxable legalization.
It wasn't hard to sway them once they saw Canada's newly overflowing coffers as they continued to suffer from the rebuilding of the disasterous hurricane season and conservatives, suddenly finding the magic solution to pay for the rebuilding, were quick to jump to the libertarian side of the spectrum to argue for legalization.
One major group fighting against legalization was the private prison industry who saw their position as threatened and tenuous- and right they were. Once the Cannabis Legalization Act passed in the United States eighteen months after Canada's passage, millions of prisoners were released from the prison system.
However, this loss of potential revenue, plus the cost of so many new introductions to the workforce, was highly offset by the same sort of economic growth seen from the legalization in Canada.
And, in both the U.S. and Canada, and soon much of the rest of the world, major scientific breakthroughs were made in medicine, fabrics, plastics, fuels and other fields due to money being invested into cannabis research, further driving up the market with a glut of new, cheaper products made from hemp.
Of course, once the United States legalized it, it was only a matter of time before most first-world countries had taken the same step. by 2010, cannabis legalized throughout the EU, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and much of Southeast Asia. China resisted legalization at first, worried that it might hurt their own productivity, but the economic lure was too strong and soon, China led the world in hemp textile and paper manufacturing.
Only in the middle-east was it still facing difficulty in legalization, but as the oil ran out, exploration into alternative fuels began to seem like a better idea every day to the monarchs of Arabia. It took a lot of convincing of many strict mullahs, attempts to find Koranic evidence of ancient marijuana use, and a few well-timed 'suicide bombings,' but eventually, even Saudi Arabia relented and legalized it.
And so, we reach today. Cannabis is now legal in 90% of the world. Cures from glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, sickle-cell anemia and even some very effective cancer treatments have been developed, virtually eliminating most of those diseases from the first world.
Due to the increase in biomass from marijuana production, many diesel stations are now able to pump fuels which are up to 40% biodiesel at no measurably extra cost and with the decriminalization of a major source of arrests the world over, crime statistics suddenly looked a whole lot nicer to the world populace. We have all benefitted from the great changes that legalization have brought and we look forward to seeing what new, wonderful changes have yet to come from this little green marvel.