Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jun 2003
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: A - 27
Copyright: 2003 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Robert MacCoun
Note: Robert MacCoun is professor of public policy and law at the University
of California at Berkeley. He wrote, with Peter Reuter, "Drug War Heresies:
Learning from Other Vices, Times and Places" (Cambridge University Press,
2001).

American Laws, Foreign Lands

O CANNABIS! POT DECRIMINALIZATION IN CANADA HIGHLIGHTS U.S. ISOLATION

After many false starts over three decades, the Canadian government
has at last introduced legislation to remove criminal penalties for
the possession of an ounce of marijuana.

The U.S. government's predictable reaction is outrage. Drug czar John
Walters opined that "You expect your friends to stop the movement of
poison to your neighborhood." Paul Cellucci, the U.S. Ambassador to
Canada warned that Canadian travelers might expect more delays at the
border as customs officials search for marijuana. In a surprising act
of neighborliness, the Canadian government has refrained from noting
that it did not protest when the border state of New York made
essentially the same change back in 1975.

The complaints about Canada's proposed legislation are difficult to
take at face value. One hopes Walters' Office of National Drug Control
Policy is simply misinterpreting the word "decriminalization" as
"legalization," the (incorrect) notion that Americans could buy
marijuana legally in Canadian retail establishments.

In fact, Canada's policy change will have minimal to negligible
consequences for the U.S. drug problem. The new law would keep the
sale of marijuana illegal; this is quite different from the money
Dutch cannabis coffee shops earn from German and French customers, or
what U.S. states experienced when neighboring states had different
drinking ages.

Moreover, the proposed new law creates no legal loophole for
smugglers, who handle multi-kilo shipments. The only slightly
plausible mechanism by which it might lead to more smuggling into the
United States is if Canadian law enforcement would be less interested
in marijuana enforcement generally, a minor influence at best. Europe
shows that it is possible to be soft on marijuana users yet tough on
traffickers. Even the Netherlands -- which tolerates ambiguity as much
as it tolerates cannabis use -- aggressively pursues high-level
cannabis traffickers.

Moreover, the Canadian legislation brings that country into line with
12 American states that made the same change in the 1970s. Many other
western nations (Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the
United Kingdom and several territories of Australia) have also removed
criminal penalties for marijuana possession over the last 20 years.

A variety of statistical analyses over the past 25 years have failed
to find a relationship between decriminalization and levels of
marijuana use. A half a dozen states that have not decriminalized have
higher levels of marijuana use than notoriously liberal California
(which decriminalized pot in the 1970s).

The same conclusions can be drawn from the European data. In 2001, the
E.U. country with the highest rate was the United Kingdom, which is
only now beginning the transition to decriminalization; it was far
ahead of the Netherlands, notwithstanding the latter's coffee shops.

Why then does the Bush administration take this Canadian initiative so
seriously? The most likely explanation is symbolic politics. The real
threat is that Canada's actions will aid and abet American marijuana
reformers by legitimizing their position. That is also a likely
explanation for the vehemence of federal opposition to state medical
marijuana laws in any other light. There has been no evidence to date
that medical exemptions have led to increased marijuana use. Medical
marijuana is seen as the Trojan horse for commercial legalization, a
view made more credible by the prominence of drug-policy reform
organizations rather than patient groups.

The federal government clearly senses a growing international
isolation on marijuana policy and on drug policy more generally. U.S.
defiance of world opinion has become almost routine, but whereas the
United States might claim a unique viewpoint on geopolitical issues,
the same argument cannot be made for marijuana. We should welcome the
opportunity to learn from the drug-policy experiments of our neighbors. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake