In Canada, hundreds of drug gangs make billions of dollars from selling recreational substances including cannabis.

Unlike average taxpayers, these gangs avoid charging sales tax and do not declare the billions of dollars they make from underground and hidden grow operations.

Often, they recruit high school students and immigrants to handle the sales, while the dealers enjoy living the lives of millionaires.

The growth of drug gangs in Canada is very similar to the growth of organized crime in the United States as a result of the prohibition of Alcohol in the 1920s.

Whenever there is an opportunity for large profits in handling an illicit product, free enterprising criminals will find a way to profit. These gangs threaten public safety as they use automatic weapons to secure their turf, and often trade drugs for stolen goods, creating a clearinghouse for thieves and common robbers.

Taxpayers are on the hook, not only for enforcing the current laws, but each time a criminal does get caught, hundreds of thousands of dollars in court costs and criminal services are spent to put them in jail.

As a result of aggressive and uncontrolled recruitment of new clients, often within high schools, drug abuse rates have gone way up in Canada.

Privatizing pot would make it unprofitable for many gangs to sell drugs. Instead, licensed establishments would be able to tax and regulate sales of cannabis.