Marc Emery for Mayor of Vancouver

[DrGreenthumb]

http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/u...564#Post1430564

The following is a short list of my priorities as Mayor and as MLA candidate:

• Abolish the provincial income tax, slash government spending, then use consumption taxes to finance what remains of government’s priorities.

• Legalize marijuana and distribute through provincially licensed outlets. Collect consumption taxes.

• End all the warrant-less inspections by bureaucrats and utilities snoops; instead City Hall will license any indoor growing garden for safety and security of neighbourhoods. The police Growbusters program would be canceled.

• Stop the militarization of Vancouver leading up to the Olympics.

• A focus on clean water delivery and waste management (including secondary treatments in Vancouver and tertiary treatment in Victoria).

• An end to Taser use by police in British Columbia.

• Ending the RCMP presence in BC with a British Columbia provincial police force.

• Vancouver’s existing Medical Marijuana compassion clubs will be licensed by the city.

• I would halt the current administration’s plan to transfer a portion of the business tax base burden to the residential tax burden.

• BC Place would be demolished and sold to provide high-density housing. BC Place is in use usually fewer than 5 days a month.

• The Whitecaps Soccer Stadium on the railroad lands by Canada Place would get a green light to proceed. This is an outstanding private money project to put a multi-use sports stadium on the waterfront. Currently this project is not happening because of pressure for these same lands by the Port of Vancouver

• The Vancouver Police Dept. is nearing the end of a 4-year operational review and strategic plan. Each year it seems they’ve asked for more resources. The 2007 city of Vancouver budget shows at page 23 that the VPD has increased its staffing levels by a whopping 18.6% since 2005. Police receive about 20% of the city property tax revenues (page 34). In 2006 the police budget was $161 million dollars, about 20% of the overall city expenditures (page 48) but the actual cost was $173 million (page 51). 2007 budget for policing was $179 million. Unless the city unilaterally ends the prohibition, these policing costs will continue to escalate, and violence and crime caused by prohibition will continue – no matter how much taxpayer money the police budget gets.

• Start free distribution (injection in person only by nurses) of heroin or Oxycontin to addicts. Currently, the addict buys the heroin, or whatever iffy product the street dealer has sold him, and injects that with a nurse nearby. If the nurse or doctor injected the user with the heroin, the needle, drug, and delivery are done safely. Consequently, there would be no more street dealers of heroin, as the lucrative draw of heroin dealing diminishes almost 100%. There would be an instant reduction in social disorder and property crime. Clinics would inject users spread out over the lower mainland and not congested in one area. The downtown eastside would be greatly improved in appearance and functionality.

• The cost of gasoline, exacerbated by the BC Liberal Carbon Tax and provincial gasoline taxes, rises while this resource is produced within Canada. You and I pay the same price for gasoline as if it were imported from the Middle East or Venezuela. Yet in Venezuela, the cost of gasoline is 16 cents Canadian a liter vs. $1.35 for a liter of the same gasoline in Vancouver. In both cases the gasoline is domestically produced, but the exorbitant cost to the citizen in Vancouver is due to rapacious taxation. Even Canadian gasoline sold in the United States is $1 a liter, and they import it, of course. Government is screwing us.

• End of prescription requirements for drugs for chronic health conditions or maintenance, including female reproductive health concerns, STD medication, and any other condition that is permanent, long-term, or where the patient already fully understands the implications and indications of the medicine they are using. For pain management, a doctor should be involved, but once a person needs to buy medicines for years or life, there should be no prescription requirements. This will make life for the people better while cutting millions of dollars from health care expenditures fees for these unnecessary prescriptions.

In the above platform, I have over-lapped municipal and provincial jurisdictions since I plan to run for both Mayor in the Saturday, November 15 Vancouver municipal election and MLA in the soon to be called Vancouver-Fairview BC by-election, which would likely be called for September/early October or January/February. Vancouver needs a progressive Mayor who does more than talk. Vancouver needs a Mayor who is going to implement progressive policy. This election will be about who can make it happen and how. There are 50,000 - 80,000 cannabis users in Vancouver alone. There 300,000 cannabis users in the lower mainland, 8,000-12,000 grows to supply them, and over 5,000 dealers distributing the cannabis. These people can and will vote. I’m tired of every election’s establishment candidates of the NDP and Liberals or NPA and Vision Vancouver threatening to make more arrests, close more grows and give police “more resources” to harass the cannabis community with impunity. Collectively, the cannabis culture in British Columbia brings billions of dollars to their communities across BC. Seth Rogen, Vancouver’s most famous movie star, is a 100% pothead who smokes pot in every show and hit movie he does. The cannabis culture has been the whipping boy for the law and order card, and I won’t stand for it this election or any other.

Support me in my run for Mayor and MLA!

Marc Scott Emery

August 3, 2008

sounds pretty Libertarian to me.

[HisSelf]

Yeah. This is a wonderful idea. Can the f'n US of A extradite an elected Canadian official? I love the complication. This is what we need. A little Cree-eh-tiv-ah-tee.

Nice Post.

[bush_cheney2004]

Yeah. This is a wonderful idea. Can the f'n US of A extradite an elected Canadian official? I love the complication. This is what we need. A little Cree-eh-tiv-ah-tee.

Of course it can....hell...it could just shoot 'em too. I think a martyr for maryjane would be swell for the "movement". My Bob Marley poster is getting kind of old.

Edited August 10, 2008 by bush_cheney2004

[M.Dancer]

Of course it can....hell...it could just shoot 'em too. I think a martyr for maryjane would be swell for the "movement". My Bob Marley poster is getting kind of old.

I think you have bob confused with maybe peter....although I don't think there's enough tea in BC to elect Emery. And being mayor of a 3rd tier CDN town does not give anyone diplomatic immunity, not in Canada, not in the U S of Eh

[bush_cheney2004]

I think you have bob confused with maybe peter....although I don't think there's enough tea in BC to elect Emery. And being mayor of a 3rd tier CDN town does not give anyone diplomatic immunity, not in Canada, not in the U S of Eh

No I meant Bob Marley dammit...the only Peter who would apply for me would be Peter Tosh. Ganja Mon!

[AngusThermopyle]

No I meant Bob Marley dammit...the only Peter who would apply for me would be Peter Tosh. Ganja Mon!

Like em both, though I do prefer Bob.

[segnosaur]

http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/u...564#Post1430564

sounds pretty Libertarian to me.

Sorry, but there's just not enough detail to classify him as a "Libertarian".

Yes, he does make a statement about how he wants to "Slash Government spending", but apart from issues involving policing, he goes into very few details about how exactly he'd do that. Would he cut welfare? What about social housing? What about privatization of health care? He's given no indication about how he feels about any of those issues (all of which would be important to most Libertarians.)

Is his idea of 'slashing government spending' going to involve deep cuts to the police force, and nothing else, while continuing to spend billions on public health care, government welfare, and other social programs?

In fact, some of his policies are actually anti-Libertarian. Such as:

- He proposes 'free distribution' of heroin to addicts. Who would pay for that? If its the government (about the only way he would have the influence to set up a program), then he is definitely not following Libertarian ideals. (A Libertarian would give people the right to use heroin, but it would be totally up to the addict to finance his own habit. Taking tax money from me to pay for the 'free distribution' would be an unfair application of force against me.)

- He wants to replace BC Place with high-density housing. However, the Libertarian approach would be to sell it to private interests, and let them do whatever they wish. Suggesting they would force the land to be used for a specific purpose would be an intrusion into property rights

Edited August 15, 2008 by segnosaur

[DrGreenthumb]

Sorry, but there's just not enough detail to classify him as a "Libertarian".

Yes, he does make a statement about how he wants to "Slash Government spending", but apart from issues involving policing, he goes into very few details about how exactly he'd do that. Would he cut welfare? What about social housing? What about privatization of health care? He's given no indication about how he feels about any of those issues (all of which would be important to most Libertarians.)

Is his idea of 'slashing government spending' going to involve deep cuts to the police force, and nothing else, while continuing to spend billions on public health care, government welfare, and other social programs?

In fact, some of his policies are actually anti-Libertarian. Such as:

- He proposes 'free distribution' of heroin to addicts. Who would pay for that? If its the government (about the only way he would have the influence to set up a program), then he is definitely not following Libertarian ideals. (A Libertarian would give people the right to use heroin, but it would be totally up to the addict to finance his own habit. Taking tax money from me to pay for the 'free distribution' would be an unfair application of force against me.)

- He wants to replace BC Place with high-density housing. However, the Libertarian approach would be to sell it to private interests, and let them do whatever they wish. Suggesting they would force the land to be used for a specific purpose would be an intrusion into property rights

For the cost of jailing one addict, you could supply every addict in the country for the next 20 years. It is only prohibition that makes plants worth their weight in gold. In any case Emery is far more libertarian minded than you are with your support for Harper and his fascist crew. How does mandaTORY minimums for adults choosing plant based medicines over alcohol and pharmaceuticals enhance anyone's freedom?

[segnosaur]

For the cost of jailing one addict, you could supply every addict in the country for the next 20 years.

A totally irrelevant statement. (A Libertarian would not jail the addict in the first place, but he wouldn't pay for his drugs either. So trying to link the 'cost' of incarceration with the cost of providing drugs is irrelevant.)

So, once again... if you are claiming that Emery is a Libertarian, where is the proof that he will cut or eliminate Welfare? That he will cut or eliminate Social housing? That he will cut or eliminate government-run health care? That he will work to curtail the activities of human rights commissions when they investigate 'hate speech'?

In any case Emery is far more libertarian minded than you are with your support for Harper and his fascist crew.

You know, if you actually bother reading an actual history book, you'll learn that the fascists (as represented by WW2 Germany and Italy) were truly evil, detestable people, willing to engage in such attrocities such as genocide. Your attempts to link the conservative government with such barbarians is, quite frankly detestable. It belittles the truly malevolent actions that were carried out by Hitler et al.

Frankly, I think its rather disgusting.

Do you really think the holocaust was such a minor event that it can be equated to anything that the current government is doing?

Not only have you shown a complete and total ignorance of what the concept of 'libertarian' is, but you are showing a complete and total ignorance over basic 20th century history.

How does mandaTORY minimums for adults choosing plant based medicines over alcohol and pharmaceuticals enhance anyone's freedom?

Nobody said it would.

How would taking money out of my pocket to pay for someone else's expenses enhance MY freedom?

Edited August 18, 2008 by segnosaur

[Pliny]

sounds pretty Libertarian to me.

Not in the least. What is your attraction to Libertarianism? It would be best you followed the leader and endorsed the NDP. You are a lib-left socialist attempting to portray all legislation disagreeable to yourself as Fascist despotism and declaring yourself the representative of all things good through your own legislation.

You simply have too much time on your hands.