Pubdate: Fri, 30 May 2003
Source: National Public Radio (US)
Copyright: 2003 National Public Radio
Contact:  http://www.npr.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1296
Anchor: Neal Conan

CANADA'S PROPOSED LEGISLATION TO CHANGE MARIJUANA LAWS

This is TALK OF THE NATION.  I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

Tomorrow, organ donation.  Currently if you want to donate your organs 
after your death your family can overturn that decision.  A proposed change 
would honor a person's right to donate, even if their family says no. What 
do you think?  Call us tomorrow at this time on TALK OF THE NATION.

This week, Canada introduced legislation that would change its marijuana 
laws. The penalty for growing pot would be increased.  But the idea that's 
getting the most attention is the decriminalization of possession of small 
amounts of marijuana.  US officials are concerned that looser laws in 
Canada could increase the amount of pot crossing the border to the United 
States.

What do you think of Canada's proposal?  Join the conversation.  Our number 
is (800) 989-TALK.  Our e-mail address is Mitch Earleywine is the author of "Understanding Marijuana." He's an 
associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, 
and we reached him in Los Angeles.

Good of you to be with us.

Professor MITCH EARLEYWINE (University of Southern California): Glad to be 
back.

CONAN: Can you explain the legislation that's introduced in the Canadian 
parliament this week?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: The new law would essentially make it just a civil 
offense if you have 15 grams of marijuana or less.  So instead of having to 
go down and get fingerprinted and have a whole prosecution, you just simply 
would get the equivalent of a traffic ticket for having that much marijuana.

CONAN: And 15 grams is roughly half an ounce.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Exactly.

CONAN: Now there are other laws, as we mentioned.  The penalties for 
growing pot would be increased.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: The idea is to actually increase those up to perhaps 14 
years if you're cultivating marijuana, so you could be in prison for 14 
years if you grew the plant itself.

CONAN: There are parts of this country where marijuana growing is described 
as the largest cash crop, and then you pick it from wherever region you 
want to talk about.  Is this a big industry in Canada as well?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: As it turns out, some of the estimates, between two 
billion and probably eight billion, are pretty credible, so there's a lot 
of money there.

CONAN: And that's a lot of money even in Canadian dollars.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Exactly.

CONAN: Are there any hidden costs to this new decriminalization proposal in 
Canada?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Rather than hidden costs I could see a lot of 
benefits.  I think they're going to save a lot of money and a lot of time 
for law enforcement folks.  When I talk to police officers in Australia, 
for example, where they've decriminalized, they really appreciate being 
able to write a ticket instead of having to go through the whole process of 
getting somebody booked in order to enforce these kinds of laws.

CONAN: And that doesn't really say whether they're in favor of marijuana 
laws) or not.  It's just if you bring somebody in for the possession of a 
small amount of marijuana even today, they're not likely to do a big arrest.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Yeah.  The prosecutors actually don't really want to 
spend their time on that.  In comparison, for example, in California, which 
has about the same population as Canada, we've saved about 200 million 
every year just by changing the laws to a decriminalization approach, and 
I'm sure Canada could save that much money as well.

CONAN: How much marijuana crosses the border from Canada now?  Is this an 
industrial--I mean, you're talking billions of dollars.  That's an awful 
lot of pot.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: There's definitely the potential for a lot.  I know the 
Puget Sound area, the border between, say, Washington and British Columbia 
claims to have a lot of marijuana coming back and forth.  But the idea that 
it's even a billion is still unclear and difficult to estimate.

CONAN: So it's not clear that Canada is anything like a major exporter and 
its obvious market would be in this country.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Well, and a whole lot of marijuana in the United States 
is produced domestically, so I would say at least a third of the cannabis 
in the United States comes from here in the United States.  And I could 
certainly see American entrepreneurs stepping up to fill any gaps that 
might be showing up if Canada suddenly has worse enforcement.

CONAN: Are you aware of American growers who export to Canada?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: That's not a statistic that's easy to find, and I 
certainly don't know any personally.

CONAN: Now you mention Puget Sound.  Guarding the US-Canadian border would 
be, you know--trying to prevent this would be very, very difficult.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: It'd be extremely expensive.  We're talking about one of 
the largest borders in the world, and a whole lot of places where you could 
literally just step right across.  It's not like there's a giant wall in 
between these two countries.

CONAN: Now the Bush administration has said in its response to these 
changes in laws in Canada, which it opposes and has made no bones about 
that, but it said, you know, if that's the case they're worried about 
increased flow of marijuana across the border into the United States, and 
they might have to tighten controls at the border.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: I think that's potentially there, but I think they might 
want to consider if it's really worth the price. If they do prevent all 
marijuana from coming down from Canada, domestic growers will just increase 
their production.  I think Canada is going to see a lot more American 
tourism under this program as well.  So I don't know if that's really the 
best use of law enforcement dollars.

CONAN: Our telephone number again is (800) 989-8255, (800) 989-TALK. Our 
e-mail address:   And on the line with us is Megan, who's in 
Seattle.

MEGAN (Caller): Hello.

CONAN: Hi.

MEGAN: Good afternoon.  I'm fairly young.  I'm 17.  And I'm just interested 
in if Canada is loosening their laws as far as marijuana goes, do you think 
down the road someday that could trickle down into our system and perhaps, 
you know, we'd, down the road, have legalization of marijuana?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Well, 12 states and the District of Columbia in the 
United States have already decriminalized in one form or another.  And I do 
think at the individual state level we're probably going to see more of 
that.  As the United States becomes more of an anomaly in this--Australia, 
Spain, Italy, other places that have taken decriminalization approaches--I 
think it's going to become more and more obvious that this just isn't the 
best use of the money that we have.

MEGAN: Do you think there is a turning point as far as the view on marijuana?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Well, now with the medical marijuana statistic suggesting 
that 80 percent of Americans or more tend to approve of that, and that more 
and more folks feel like marijuana possession isn't something that should 
land you in jail, we'll gradually see a shift in that direction, I think 
probably at the state level first, each individual state deciding that 
that's the way they want to do it.

CONAN: Megan, I wonder, if you're 17 I don't see how you could have escaped 
all those television commercials that we see about the dangers of 
marijuana. Do you see them?  What do you think of them?

MEGAN: I do.  I've seen it on MTV, and they actually make me a little bit 
angry because they say--the one I'm specifically relating to has an 
advertisement for a teen-ager smoking marijuana and it says, I think, over 
a million cases each--or 1 percent or some percentile--everybody has had 
marijuana of one form or another in their system.  And I was running the 
numbers, and I didn't exactly see that that matched.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: A number of their statistics are kind of hard to follow. 
And some of the things...

MEGAN: Yeah, they are.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: ...don't make any sense.  The one where the little girl 
is pregnant and they say that marijuana got her pregnant is, of course, 
pretty laughable.

MEGAN: Yes.  That was kind of uncalled for.  I mean, I think marijuana can 
be used for a lot of different things, and I think we're really focusing on 
the bad that it creates.  And maybe, you know, if things happen and 
overturn that, down the road we can see the good that can come out of it.

CONAN: Well, Megan, your line's breaking up, but we appreciate your thoughts.

MEGAN: Thank you.

CONAN: OK.  Mitch Earleywine, there's another set of commercials that are 
run for grown-ups, and this has to do with the linkage of marijuana to, 
well, the fact that it's illegal, that if you're buying marijuana you're 
supporting, and their argument is, terrorism and international gangsters.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: I, in fact, wrote the Office of National Drug Control 
Policy about that particular commercial because it just doesn't make any 
sense to me.  And they've decided that they're probably going to pull that 
because so much of marijuana in the United States comes from the United 
States.  It really just doesn't follow that this is supporting a terrorist 
act somewhere on the other side of the world.  I do think, also, some of 
the allusions that this leads to date rape or even impaired driving is 
sometimes overstated in these commercials.

CONAN: Yet it certainly is illegal.  There are certainly any number of 
people in this country, thousands of people in this country, in jail for 
relatively small amounts of marijuana.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Oh, it's pretty insane.  Over 700,000 people were 
arrested on marijuana-related offenses last year, and over 80 percent of 
them were just simple possession charges.  So if we didn't have to actually 
arrest those people and could simply write them a ticket, you can imagine 
all the law enforcement time and money we could save, and as well as time 
in the justice system.

CONAN: Now we talked about this as an industry in Canada.  How big a 
business is this in the United States?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: The $10 billion estimate is probably the most accurate as 
far as that's concerned.  And you can imagine it's one of the top three or 
four cash crops here in the United States.

CONAN: And if you're growing that much marijuana, it's hard to imagine that 
you can do it very long or very successfully without a lot of people 
knowing that you're doing it.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: That is definitely the case, and you could see how that 
could lead to certain forms of corruption within law enforcement. It's also 
led) to some disrespect for the law among our citizens.  And I think if we 
did move to a decriminalization policy, people would have less of that problem.

CONAN: We're discussing the decision in Canada to consider changes in 
marijuana laws. Again, some of the penalties for growing marijuana would be 
increased.  But the one idea that's getting the most attention is to 
decriminalize possession of about half an ounce of marijuana or less. Our 
guest is Mitch Earleywine. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR 
News.

And let's get another caller involved.  Angela.  Angela joins us on the 
line from San Jose, California.

ANGELA (Caller): Hi.  How are you?

CONAN: OK.

ANGELA: Great. I was just wondering what the reasoning--I guess I 
understand the reasoning, but my problem with the idea of decriminalizing 
possession of marijuana but then having more stringent laws with growing 
marijuana--what that makes me think is that what you're really doing is 
encouraging illegal drug trade, say, from Mexico or from other places like 
that.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: I agree.  I'm afraid you're right.  The idea of cracking 
down on growers now may actually inadvertently increase that underground 
market. An idea that was originally floated was that maybe each person 
could have two plants, for example.  Might make it much easier for 
individuals to grow their own cannabis and not be connected to any other 
underground market. Also, that underground market is often where people get 
exposed to drugs that really create problems, like cocaine and heroin and 
things like that.  So I do feel like this Canadian step is a step forward, 
but maybe the cracking down on growth of the plant has been something just 
to sort of appease the Bush administration.

ANGELA: I agree.

CONAN: Angela, thanks very much for the call.

ANGELA: Thank you.

CONAN: When you're talking about that, though, I mean, there's one, I 
guess, idea behind, well, you know, this person has, you know, less than 
half an ounce of marijuana.  Clearly that's for their own use and, you 
know, not a threat to become a major distributor.  On the other hand, 
somebody who's growing industrial amounts of marijuana and distributing it, 
with the way the laws are now this person is a criminal.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: And, in fact, I completely understand that.  But do we 
decide that somebody's a criminal for having a single plant in his back 
yard that's obviously for his own use?  And I think at least there have 
been some mutterings in Canada that they would crack down along those 
lines.  We'll have to see if that really plays out.

CONAN: So this would be along the lines of during prohibition of alcohol in 
this country you were allowed to brew your own home beer or ferment some wine.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: And, in fact, as long as it wasn't so much that it looked 
like you were going to be dealing in some way, people seemed to turn a 
blind eye.

CONAN: And again, it's that dealing part that I guess gets people upset.

Do you think that this Canadian legislation--obviously the effect on the 
Bush administration has been to make it very critical of the Chretien 
government in Ottawa.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: I really don't understand that critique because this is 
really going to save Canadians a lot of money, and their law enforcement 
and judicial system can focus on more important things like violent crime.

CONAN: Where do you think the legislation--I guess Maryland is the most 
recent state in this country to pass a medical marijuana law. There is 
still, obviously, an enormous tension with the federal government, which 
insists that these laws, while they may be on the books in the states, 
they're not going to be recognized by the federal government, which regards 
marijuana as a controlled) substance and that's the law in Congress.  Do 
you see that this is going to be a movement that is going to spread from 
state legislatures to the Congress of the United States?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: In fact, the Congress of the United States already has a 
bill before it to at least leave distributors of medical cannabis alone if 
their states have approved medical use.  And I do feel like this is on the 
rise. Every time I'm on the radio there's a new number and a higher number 
of states who've approved medical cannabis.  Eighty percent of Americans 
approve it.  The idea that each individual state could arrange to 
distribute medical marijuana in its own way seems consistent with the ideas 
of federalism that the United States was supposed to stand for.

CONAN: There are a lot of laws that get introduced in Congress.  Some of 
them have a chance of passage.  Do you think this one does?

Prof. EARLEYWINE: I think it's got a better chance than it ever has. It's 
got more co-sponsors than I've seen it have in the past.  And I feel like a 
lot of folks are ringing the phones off the hook in their legislators' 
offices to make sure that they understand that they really support this idea.

CONAN: A better chance than ever.  I'll take that as a no, it doesn't have 
a chance of passage.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: Well, I'm cautiously optimistic.

CONAN: You're cautiously optimistic.  And given those statistics--well, I 
think we have time for one more caller.  Shane joins us on the line from 
Raleigh, North Carolina.

Shane, if you could keep it quick.

SHANE (Caller): Yes.  I was just wanting to say that based on President 
Bush's foreign policies, I can't believe that if he wants to oppose this 
law in Canada that he will not, and find a way through economic trade or 
some other means to make sure that this doesn't get enacted in Canada.

CONAN: Well, Mitch Earleywine, a lot of people say the threat to tighten up 
border controls is exactly that.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: And, in fact, I do think that's consistent with a kind of 
economic sanction on the Bush administration's part.  We'll have to see if 
Canada has the guts to sort of stand up to that.

CONAN: Shane, I'm afraid we're out of time, but we appreciate your phone call.

SHANE: Thank you.

CONAN: Mitch Earleywine, also, thanks to you for speaking with us today.

Prof. EARLEYWINE: My pleasure to be back, Neal.

CONAN: Mitch Earleywine is the author of "Understanding Marijuana." He's an 
associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. 
We reached him in Los Angeles, California.

In Washington, I'm Neal Conan, NPR News.
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