Pubdate: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Richard Foot, CanWest News Service Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?196 (Emery, Marc) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?218 (Canadian Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs) POT Legalize Vs Prosecute: With So Many Canadians Smoking And Growing It, Is A Ban Practical? Canadians will today consume roughly 2,100 kilograms of marijuana -- enough to fill more than 150 large cardboard boxes. By the end of the year, three million of us, according to a recent study by the Senate, will have smoked, eaten or otherwise inhaled almost 770,000 kilograms of the stuff -- impressive numbers considering that marijuana use is a federal crime. It is also a crime to cultivate the weed. Yet, police and industry insiders estimate about 215,000 growers across the country produce more than 2.6 million kilograms of cannabis each year. In British Columbia alone, the pot-growing industry is believed to generate up to $6 billion in annual sales, making it one of the West Coast's biggest industries after forestry and tourism. With so many Canadians smoking and growing marijuana, questions are being asked about why the federal government maintains its prohibition against the drug, and how, if the prohibition is sound public policy, police can ever be expected to properly enforce the law. "Why doesn't the government stop dragging its feet and implement a fully legal regulatory regime for marijuana for everybody?" says Jody Pressman, a marijuana advocate in Ottawa. Says Dana Larsen, editor of Vancouver-based Cannabis Culture Magazine, which sells 85,000 copies every month in Canada and the U.S: "Under a fully legalized system people could grow marijuana commercially and sell it in stores licensed by the government. It could be subject to health controls, quality controls and taxes. It wouldn't have to be more expensive than any other fruit or vegetable." Such views are no longer the sole property of the political fringe. Two years ago, the Senate's special committee on illegal drugs interviewed 2,000 witnesses as part of the most exhaustive Canadian study into marijuana in 30 years. The committee's 2002 report urged Ottawa to end its 81-year-old prohibition by implementing a system to regulate the production, distribution and consumption of marijuana -- the same as governments do with alcohol. "If the aim of [existing] public policy is to diminish consumption and supply of drugs, specifically cannabis, all signs indicate complete failure," the report said. "Billions of dollars have been sunk into enforcement without any great effect." The Liberal government, however, is taking another route, choosing to simply decriminalize small-time pot usage and to toughen the law against commercial growers and dealers. Bill C-10, introduced in the House of Commons last month, would make the possession of up to 15 grams of pot and up to three marijuana plants no more serious than driving over the speed limit, punishable by tickets and fines of between $100-$500. The bill also increases the fines and jail terms for people caught trafficking or growing larger amounts of pot in an apparent bid to deter organized crime groups, whose entry into the industry in recent years has resulted in the proliferation of massive commercial grow operations throughout the country. Yet, the proposed law isn't making anyone happy. Recreational smokers predict it will push up the demand and, therefore, the price of marijuana, making it a more attractive cash crop for organized crime. People who use the drug for medicinal reasons complain the government should be finding ways to ensure them an effective and legal supply of marijuana instead of fiddling around with changes to the Criminal Code. Mothers Against Drunk Driving says the bill will lead to more drug-induced traffic accidents, because police have no scientific way to measure how much marijuana impaired motorists might have been smoking. "Police have no power to get drivers operating under the influence of marijuana off the roads," adds Gwendolyn Landolt, vice-president of REAL Women of Canada. "The message this gives Canadian youth is 'Don't drink and drive, just toke and drive.'" Police organizations, meanwhile, argue that removing their discretionary power to arrest even small-scale marijuana users and growers will hamper efforts to fight the wider drug war. "It's one thing to have 15 grams in your house, but should it be permissible to have 15 grams on the street, where someone could be pushing those drugs to kids?" says Kevin McAlpine, chief of the Durham Regional Police force and co-chair of the organized crime committee for the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. "That's the fine detail we're concerned about." RCMP Chief Superintendent Raf Souccar, director-general of the Mounties' drugs and organized crime section, says American officials have privately told him they are "extremely upset" by the decriminalization proposals. As for the Senate, its 2002 report called decriminalization the "worst case scenario" because it would deprive the government of its ability to regulate and control a drug that decades of lawmaking has failed to suppress. Even Bill C-10's own legislative summary warns that tougher marijuana laws could have the opposite intended effect on organized crime. "Ironically, one of the possible consequences of heavier penalties may be to tighten the grip of organized crime on production," the summary says. "It is doubtful that members of criminal organizations would be concerned about heavier penalties." The Senate reported that Canada's courts and police now spend up to $500 million every year trying to enforce the marijuana laws, particularly against the indoor growing operations owned by biker gangs, Asian syndicates and other organized crime groups. The scope of this phenomenon became apparent earlier this year when police in Barrie, Ont., busted a massive cultivation operation, with 25,000 cloned marijuana plants growing under rows of lights, inside a former Molson brewery on the side of one of Canada's busiest highways. Police say the number of large, commercial growing operations has almost tripled over the last five years in Ontario alone. Many such operations exist inside modern homes in suburban neighbourhoods. The houses are gutted and refitted for the sole purpose of cultivating pot. Indoor operations have been made possible by hydroponic technology and by a 1980s invention called the full-spectrum halide light, which utilizes huge quantities of electricity but allows pot growers to cultivate a mature plant in eight weeks. Electricity for the indoor lights is stolen from the local power company by experts who secretly re-wire the home's connection to the power grid in a way that escapes metering. Caretakers are then hired to watch over the operation, often without knowing who, or which crime gang, they're working for. Police say at least 70 per cent of Canada's 2.6 million kilograms of cannabis output gets sold in the U.S., much of it smuggled across the border by crime gangs in exchange for guns, ecstasy and cocaine. It's America's insatiable appetite for marijuana and the easy money it promises that has lured organized crime into the marijuana racket in recent years. Marc Emery, an activist who broadcasts Internet-based marijuana programming out of his "Pot-TV" offices in Vancouver, says the traditional cannabis community isn't inherently profit-focused or prone to violence; he says these are the unwelcome characteristics organized criminals are bringing to the business. Police in Ontario have launched a campaign to smoke out gang-operated growing operations with a co-ordinated effort from hydro companies, banks, insurance and real estate firms. All of these unwittingly provide service to grow-ops in some way, and could help police stop new marijuana operations from moving into homes and other properties around the province. Colin Kenny, the Tory senator who co-chaired the Senate's 2002 drugs committee, says such enforcement efforts are doomed to failure. Consider, he says, the parallels between today's expanding problem and the crime-plagued U.S. prohibition on booze in the 1920s. "We all know why Al Capone flourished," says Kenny. "It's because the government prohibited something the public was interested in. When there's a public demand for something and you make it illegal, that only makes it more valuable. And when you drive up the price you are going to have criminals moving in to exploit it. "The only way to deal with big gro-ops is legalization." Adds Larsen of Cannabis Culture Magazine, "These big-time grow-ops will continue to proliferate until marijuana is legalized. The police will keep busting them, not because they're getting better at it, but because there'll be more and more." Biker gangs and Asian crime networks aren't the only people growing marijuana. It is also cultivated in every province and territory by people with small and medium-sized operations, many of them ordinary folk with legitimate day jobs and families. Emery estimates Canadian growers own an average of 4.5 lights each, producing half-a-kilogram of pot on average every two months. Pot-growing is now as popular and as sophisticated a public pastime as the home-renovation craze, except that it doesn't manifest itself in big-box Home Depot stores. Instead, marijuana magazines and the Internet are filled with how-to, home growing guides and advice. There are CD-ROMs with pot-growing garden tips, and online seed banks. Emery, arguably the world's largest marijuana seed seller, hawks more than 500 varieties of mail-order seed -- from "Malawi Gold" to "Afghan Dream" to "Nepalese Grizzly" -- out of the pages of Cannabis Culture Magazine, which he publishes. He even markets a brand called "Ben Johnson -- good solid buds and a full, pungent smoke." Seed sales, marijuana magazine publishing, and increasingly small-time pot smoking fit into a grey area of the law, in which no one seems to be certain of what's illegal and what's not. Cannabis Culture Magazine is widely sold on newsstands, yet the magazines are occasionally confiscated by police. One commercial pot grower on the East Coast who identifies himself as "Jake" is a buttoned-down, 48-year-old owner of a legal manufacturing business with 15 employees. When he's not running his company, he's secretly growing outdoor cannabis crops, with the help of a handful of workers, on dozens of hectares of Crown-owned and private logging land in the wilds of the Maritimes. He says two-thirds of his own income comes from marijuana sales. "People would be staggered if they knew how many doctors, dentists, accountants and even judges smoke pot," says Jake, who vows he'd sell his legitimate business in a heartbeat, and turn full time to growing marijuana - -- happily paying taxes on his product -- if only Ottawa would legalize the system. He says legalization and government regulation of the distribution and consumption networks would force crime gangs out of the marijuana game, and allow producers like himself to cultivate and sell their crops without skulking around in secrecy. "It makes no sense to me," he says. "I can legally marry a man in Canada today. But I can't smoke a joint." Alan Young, the Toronto law professor who has crusaded for years in the courts for legal access to marijuana, particularly for medicinal users, says there are probably more pot smokers in Canada than gay people, but gays have had more success moving their agenda forward -- on issues such as same-sex marriage -- because the gay movement is well organized and well funded. Until marijuana activists get their act together, he says, they're unlikely to change the system. "There are probably a dozen activist marijuana groups in the country but they've never been able to work together," says Young. "The current activists don't have a voice because they are penniless and they are not leaders in the community. I have had occasion to indulge in this habit with leaders of business, police and the judiciary. Until some of these people come forward, this movement won't have real political influence in this country." Canada's police chiefs are vocal, well respected and well organized opponents of legalizing marijuana. "We are morally bound to fight this fight," argues Durham Regional Police Chief Kevin McAlpine, who also co-chairs the organized crime committee of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. McAlpine says he isn't convinced by the fact that cannabis use, although widespread, is far less of a drain on the public health system than the effects of alcohol or tobacco. The Senate reported in 2002 that the social and economic costs of cannabis use are "minimal -- no deaths, few hospitalizations and little loss of productivity." No matter, says McAlpine. "It's our view that marijuana is not harmless. As for the legalization issue, I haven't yet heard anybody telling me how our American friends would react or how we'd stop the flow of Canadian marijuana across the border. Legalization is just not a mature debate at this point." RCMP Chief Supt. Raf Souccar says he doesn't know if the marijuana war can be won, but he is certain it should continue. "This talk about legalization is very cynical," he says. "What are we going to legalize next -- break and enters, rapes and murders? We can't give up, we have to fight smarter, and harder." Cannabis Culture's Dana Larsen says throughout history Canada has showed the U.S. how to liberalize its society. He predicts it will do so again with marijuana. "Canada has always led America toward greater social liberties. We led them on ending slavery, we led them on ending the prohibition on alcohol, and we'll lead them towards ending the prohibition on marijuana. I'm sure I'll see it in my lifetime." - - - - MARIJUANA IN CANADA Number of marijuana users: 2.3 million Annual marijuana consumption: 770,000 kilograms Annual marijuana production: 2.6 million kilograms Amount of domestic production consumed in Canada: 30 per cent Number of growing operations (personal use and commercial): 215,000 Number of people employed in marijuana growing: 500,000 Price of an ounce (29 grams) of top-grade, AAA marijuana, the equivalent of 20-50 joints: $250 Annual number of reported arrests for offences covering all illegal drugs: 90,000 Number of reported marijuana offences in 1999: 35,000 Number of reported marijuana offences in 2001 (70 per cent possession, 16 per cent trafficking, 13 per cent cultivation, one per cent importation): 71,600 Percentage of population (ages 12-64) that has used marijuana at least once: 30 Number of youths aged 12-17 who use it daily: 225,000 Average age of introduction to marijuana: 15 Percentage of regular marijuana users at risk of developing dependency: 5-10 per cent Substance abuse costs associated with all illegal drugs: $1.4 billion. Of alcohol: $7.5 billion Of tobacco: $9.6 billion Annual cost of enforcing the marijuana laws for courts and police: $500 million Sources: 2002 Report of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs; Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse; Marijuana Party of Canada; Marc Emery, Vancouver, B.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom