Pubdate: Fri, 06 Sep 2002 Source: Kitchener-Waterloo Record (CN ON) Copyright: 2002 Kitchener-Waterloo Record Contact: http://www.therecord.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225 Related: What's Up In Canada, Eh? / by Matthew Elrod http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2002/ds02.n266.html#sec5 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) THE SENATE'S FINE SMOKE SIGNALS The reputation of the Canadian Senate as a dusty repository of staid if not stale minds has gone up in smoke -- we cannot tell what kind of smoke -- with the stunning call from members of this august body to legalize marijuana. Though Canadians often wonder what senators do for their salaries, it is clear that a special Senate committee has been hard at work studying Canada's antiquated and harmful marijuana laws, checking the medical and legal facts about the drug and producing a gutsy and intelligent list of recommendations for change. The senators deserve a sustained round of applause for their efforts, even if Parliament should be in no hurry to legalize this drug. At the very least, the senators have advanced the debate over Canada's drug laws and helped establish common ground from which to proceed. They agree with federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon -- and we think a substantial number of ordinary citizens -- that this country's marijuana laws are out of date, out of touch, and enforced inconsistently and, therefore, unfairly. For example, only five per cent of people charged and convicted of possession of drugs for personal use in Toronto received jail sentences while as many as 55 per cent of those convicted elsewhere in Ontario go to jail. Society's attitudes to marijuana have changed but the law and how that law is enforced ignore this. An estimated 600,000 Canadians have criminal records for simple possession of pot. But we have yet to see a convincing argument that the evils of this substance in any way justify a law that creates so many criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people. The Senate committee findings also concur with an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in May 2001 which called marijuana an "innocuous drug." Indeed, by any objective standard, tobacco and alcohol are far more pernicious substances and cause inestimably more pain, grief and, yes, death than pot.Yet they remain legal, if highly controlled and taxed substances. Having said this, we would not go so far as the senate would lead us. We, like many others in Canada including the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, the Canadian Medical Association Journal and a broad spectrum of federal politicians in every party, favour decriminalization. And there is a big difference. What the senate advocates is making pot smoking legal for anyone over 16 and a regulated system for producing and selling marijuana. In sharp contrast, decriminalization would mean that simple possession of small amounts of this substance for personal use would no longer constitute a criminal offence punishable by jail but would be downgraded to a civil misdemeanour that merited a fine. Britain recently adopted a similar approach. The senators rightly point out that one weakness of decriminalization is that it would leave in the hands of criminals the responsibility for growing and distributing marijuana. But legalization -- which would give Canada the world's most liberal marijuana laws -- also has problems. It is almost certain that legalization would result in a huge, criminal network that smuggles marijuana into the United States. The American government would take a dim view of this, to say the least. And while Canada should never be afraid of asserting its sovereignty, it is at least worth asking whether we want to risk a major rift with our biggest trading partner and closest neighbour over marijuana. Whatever its shortcomings, the Senate committee report should provide a burr in the side of the federal government, one that encourages the overdue revision of our drug laws. A full 30 years have passed since the highly respected Le Dain Commission advocated decriminalization in Canada. The time has come to do something. A House of Commons committee is expected to release a report on illicit drugs in November. Let a new debate begin then, followed by real action and reform. Let's take this one step at a time, and the first step is the decriminalization of marijuana. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake