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