VANCOUVER — Four former B.C. attorneys general — one of whom served as premier — have added their authoritative voices to calls for the decriminalization of marijuana.

Former NDP premier and federal health minister Ujjal Dosanjh, along with Geoff Plant, Colin Gabelmann and Graeme Bowbrick, added their experience as the province's top legal authority to legalization in a letter released Monday. Plant served in the Liberal government of former premier Gordon Campbell — Gabelmann and Bowbrick in earlier NDP governments.

"As former B.C. attorneys-general, we are fully aware that British Columbia lost its war against the marijuana industry many years ago," write the four, who collectively served as attorneys general from 1991 to 2005, a critical period of time when public perception of pot smoking changed dramatically.

"The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana prohibition is airtight. The evidence? Massive profits for organized crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for our youth, reduced community safety and significant — and escalating — costs to taxpayers."

The four say the Liberal government of B.C. Premier Christy Clark is wrong to support Prime Minister Stephen Harper's bid to have mandatory minimum sentences for minor pot charges.

"These misguided prosecutions will further strain an already clogged system, without reducing cannabis prohibition-related violence or rates of cannabis use," write the quartet.

"As attorneys-general, we were the province's chief prosecutors and were responsible for overseeing the justice system," they continue. "In this role, we became well aware of the burden imposed on the province's justice system and court processes by enforcement of marijuana prohibition."

They drew parallels to prohibition in the United States as a dangerous precursor of things to come.

"The most obvious parallel to today's marijuana prohibition is the bloodshed and gang warfare that emerged in the United States in the 1920s during alcohol prohibition, and then disappeared when prohibition was repealed in 1933.

"It is time B.C. politicians listened to the vast majority of B.C. voters who support replacing cannabis prohibition in favour of a strictly regulated legal market for adult marijuana use."

Former Vancouver mayors Larry Campbell, Mike Harcourt, Sam Sullivan and Philip Owen made a similar call for pot decriminalization late last year.

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mraptis@theprovince.com

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