Pubdate: Thu, 26 Feb 2004
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Page: A20
Copyright: 2004, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Bill Johnston
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n333/a04.html?21169

HOW CRIMES CHANGE

The suggestion that the justice system fails to keep up with public 
attitudes is true (Too Many Pot Busts -- Feb. 25). A reading of the 1939 
Criminal Code of Canada dramatically illustrates the extent to which times 
and the law can change.

In those "good old days," consensual "buggery" could attract a life 
sentence. The act of oral sex between males was a "gross indecency" 
attracting up to five years in prison and whipping with a 
cat-o'-nine-tails. Advertising condoms was an indictable offence liable to 
two years imprisonment. Reporting salacious details of divorce proceedings 
could lead to four months in jail. A doctor committing abortion risked life 
imprisonment and the woman seven years in jail.

The plain, dismal fact is that if public demand for a substance or 
activity, no matter how reprehensible, is high, criminalization will not 
work. Indeed, it is almost sure to be counterproductive, as illustrated by 
the disastrous American experiment with prohibition of "the demon drink."

Decriminalization is a begrudging, belated recognition of the inevitability 
that marijuana, like condoms in the drugstore and alcohol on open shelves, 
is here to stay.

Bill Johnston,

Waterloo, Ont.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom