Pubdate: Mon, 04 Sep 2000
Source: Time Magazine (Canada)
Copyright: 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.timecanada.com/
Feedback: http://www.time.com/time/writetous/
Author: Stephen Handelman

ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE

An Ontario Court Ruling On Medicinal Pot Is A Case Of Cross-border Advocacy

The fumes of a Canadian marijuana ruling reached a California courtroom this month and gave civil libertarians there a brief high. Defending a group of San Francisco-area doctors who prescribe pot for aids patients, attorney Graham Boyd cited a July 31 Ontario Court of Appeals judgment that accepted marijuana's medicinal benefits. "That judgment completely undercut the U.S. government's case against us," says Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's drug-policy unit.

A decision on the California case is pending, but Boyd's use of the Canadian ruling wasn't happenstance. The pro-pot side of the Ontario court case was financed by the U.S. group that bankrolled his own proceedings. The Lindesmith Center, a research institute founded in 1994 by advocates for liberalized drug policies, supports research programs and legal cases around the world. So far, it has contributed at least $125,000 to like-minded Canadian groups. "Canada has become especially important to us," says Daniel Abrahamson, director of legal affairs at Lindesmith, which is funded by financier George Soros' Open Society Institute. "Encouraging a sane drug policy across the border will play a major role in changing U.S. policies, because Canadians are a lot like us."

That's how pro-pot advocates see it, but there is another side to the story.

As Canadian jurisprudence edges away from the U.S. antidrug war, it puts at risk the hard-won alliance between the two countries on battling the illicit drug trade across the continent. "We're watching this closely," says a senior U.S. Justice Department official.

Ontario justices were well aware of their international impact.

In canceling the conviction of Terrance Parker, 44, a Toronto epileptic who cultivated marijuana for his personal medicinal use, a three-judge panel rejected the Crown's argument that Canada was obligated by international treaty to pursue a strict antidrug regime. This was a breakthrough, says Aaron Harnett, Parker's lawyer. "Americans have now found themselves next door to a country that's modernizing its views on drug policy." With exactly that aim in mind, Lindesmith representatives began meeting with Harnett two years ago, helped draft briefs, secured expert witnesses and provided $25,000 in legal fees. Says Harnett: "I couldn't have won without them."

Harnett's victory means a new headache for Ottawa. A 1999 Ontario ruling exempted medical marijuana user Jim Wakeford from prosecution on health grounds.

The Parker decision went further. It struck down the section of Canada's 1997 drug law making marijuana possession a crime, on the grounds that it violated the federal Charter of Rights. Unless the Crown appeals, Parliament has a year to change its legislation. Justice Minister Anne McLellan has floated the prospect of marijuana "decriminalization," which would make simple possession a ticketable offense like illegal parking.

That would create a legal patchwork in North America--and drive a wedge through a continent-wide antidrug coalition.

Since 1986, agreements on intelligence sharing, extradition and law-enforcement cooperation have brought Canada and the U.S. even closer on drug issues. In 1998 the RCMP became the first non-American police agency with access to the U.S. drug-intelligence center in El Paso, Texas. A growing marijuana flow from British Columbia and Manitoba has further focused U.S. attention on Canada's role in the $20 billion-a-year U.S. drug war.

Americans have not been shy about expressing fears of Canadian backsliding. A U.S. State Department report this year charged that liberal Canadian court decisions on drug possession "undermined" the bilateral narcotics strategy. Drug-legalization advocates say their cross-border alliance is a tactical response to such Washington strong-arming.

There is a larger issue.

Binational coalitions for social reform are increasingly in Canada's interest, according to Eugene Oscapella of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, a recipient of Lindesmith grants based in Ottawa. "The U.S. drug war breeds violence and corruption which spill across our border," he says. "So we have to work together." Says the A.C.L.U.'s Boyd: "In any area of social change today, it's becoming important to form international alliances."

Maybe so. But transborder solidarity to some could be just plain meddling to others. U.S. antiabortion crusaders, for example, provide legal advice and funds to their Canadian counterparts--to the irritation of many pro-choicers in Canada. The smoke from that pot victory could also signal a new era of international-advocacy politics.
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