Pubdate: Mon, 19 Sep 2005
Source: Western Standard (Canada)
Copyright: 2005 Western Standard
Contact:  http://www.westernstandard.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3448
Author: Terry O'Neill
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

B.C. JAILS' GROWING POPULARITY

Compared to the United States, Canada's judicial system treats 
marijuana-related offences with kid gloves.

Possession of small amounts of the drug is tolerated, even though it is 
still technically illegal; fewer convicted dealers and growers are sent to 
jail; and when they are incarcerated, their terms are shorter.

But even within Canada, not all drug dealers are treated equally.

If our country is generally soft on drugs, B.C. is downright limp. So much 
so that Canadian drug dealers are flocking to B.C. even after they're 
convicted of crimes to take advantage of the more temperate atmosphere.

That's what pot grower Matthew William Shaw realized.

In January, Shaw was incarcerated after police found $100,000 worth of 
marijuana plants in the basement belonging to him and his wife in rural 
Saskatchewan. Shaw, 38, pled guilty to production and possession of 
marijuana for the purposes of trafficking, in exchange for the right to 
have his case "waived," or transferred, to B.C., where his father had grown 
ill. He agreed not to contest a two-year jail term for himself, while his 
wife, nine-months pregnant at the time of sentencing and now the mother of 
two small children, also would receive only an 18-month conditional 
sentence, to be served in the community.

But in April, after three months in a Fraser Valley prison, Shaw had second 
thoughts about the deal and appealed.

In July, the appeal court ruled in a 2-1 decision to overturn the plea 
bargain and allow Shaw to serve the rest of his sentence in the community.

The majority of the judges found that "upholding a sentence that deviates 
significantly from the approach in British Columbia runs the risk of 
allowing the Crown to drive too hard a bargain for the waiver of 
jurisdiction." In other words, it doesn't matter where you committed the crime.

If you're doing the time in B.C., you'll be treated with the same kid 
gloves that offenders in that province get.

Shaw's lawyer, Martin Allen of Victoria, says his client is now working as 
an electrician in the B.C. Interior and must serve out the rest of his 
sentence under strict house arrest, in which he is allowed to leave home 
only for employment or to conduct necessary chores.

But, he argues that Crown attorneys in Saskatchewan were trying to prevent 
Shaw from getting the B.C. treatment, which they knew would be easier. "The 
Crown, of course, in Saskatchewan is aware that sentences for this offence 
tend to be lower in B.C. than in Saskatchewan, so it's obvious why they 
were doing it [forcing Shaw to accept the deal]," says Allen. The Crown 
lawyer who handled the case in B.C., Valerie Hartney, did not respond to a 
request for an interview.

The lone dissenting judge in the Shaw case, Justice Kenneth J. Smith, 
suggested that his colleagues' decision violated a fundamental principle of 
justice. "A person who commits a crime in a particular province ought to 
expect that, upon being convicted, he or she will be sentenced in 
accordance with the norms prevailing in that province," he wrote.

In arguing for Shaw's continued incarceration, Justice Smith also noted 
that one of the lesser individuals involved in the case had been sentenced 
to two years in jail in Saskatchewan; Shaw, on the other hand, "was the 
'instigator'" of what was a "sophisticated" criminal enterprise.

The case has some people predicting that pot growers will flock to B.C. in 
search of lesser penalties--even after they're caught. "Generally speaking, 
it's well known among drug dealers that wherever you're caught in Canada, 
change your residence as quickly as possible, and then have the charge 
waived in on a guilty plea to British Columbia, because the chances of 
going to jail in British Columbia are very, very slight," says Vic Toews, 
the Opposition justice critic.

A 2002 study by criminologists at the University College of the Fraser 
Valley in Abbotsford, B.C., found that judges imposed jail sentences in 
just 18 per cent of 12,000 B.C. marijuana-related cases between 1997 and 
2000. The stiffest penalty a grower received was two years less a day. A 
more recent UCFV study, made public this March, found that police are now 
less likely to investigate marijuana grow ops than they were in the late 
1990s, that the Crown is less likely to charge growers, and that the courts 
are less likely to put them behind bars.

"And does anybody in British Columbia still wonder why we have so many 
problems with drugs?" asks Conservative MP Randy White. "The court 
motivates dealers, motivates illegal profit opportunities, and it's the 
court system that is the problem for police, who throw up their hands and 
say, 'why fight this?' So British Columbia has become a haven for drug 
activity."

The federal Liberal government has responded to concerns, that grow ops 
have become all too common in Canada, by presenting legislation to increase 
maximum penalties for production of marijuana.

The proposal is part of a bill that would decriminalize the possession of 
small amounts of pot. But White argues that increasing maximum sentences is 
a red herring; to be truly effective, he says, the law should carry 
mandatory minimum sentences. "You can put 50 years down for a crime," he 
says in relation to maximum sentences, "but the judges are giving you three 
months, so what's the point?"

Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd said in an early-August CBC 
Vancouver radio debate with Toews that he sees nothing wrong with the 
duration of Canadian drug-offence jail terms. "We're much more in line with 
the democracies of western Europe with our approach to cannabis," he 
pointed out. "And in terms of the civilized world, the United States is out 
there on its own." That may be, but MP White maintains that the general 
public is fed up with the lax treatment of marijuana traffickers and 
growers. "If this doesn't stop," he says, "the public is going to stop it 
for them," by demanding an elected judiciary and mandatory minimum sentences.

But a November 2004 poll, conducted for the marijuana advocacy group NORML 
Canada, says otherwise.

It found that just over half of Canadians supported government regulation 
of the pot industry, not continued criminalization. Shaw isn't the only one 
who prefers B.C.'s more hands-off approach to marijuana crimes.

It seems most law-abiding Canadians do, too.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom