Pubdate: Wed, 07 Nov 2012
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Bruce Cheadle

CANADA TOUGHENS POT LAWS, TWO U.S. STATES LOOSEN UP

OTTAWA - The same day that voters in two U.S. states approved the 
legalization of marijuana, the Harper government in Ottawa was 
bringing into force tough new mandatory penalties for pot.

The states of Washington and Colorado both voted in favour of 
ballot-box propositions Tuesday that remove criminal penalties for 
the possession and sale of recreational marijuana, while a similar 
provision in Oregon was defeated.

Tuesday was also the day that drug measures in the Conservative 
government's omnibus Safe Streets and Communities Act, passed last 
spring, came into full force.

Canada's new law provides a mandatory six-month jail term for growing 
as few as six marijuana plants, twice the mandatory minimum for 
luring a child to watch pornography or exposing oneself on a playground.

"Today our message is clear that if you are in the business of 
producing, importing or exporting of drugs, you'll now face jail 
time," Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said in a release Tuesday, 
before U.S. polls closed.

By day's end, Colorado had voted to permit adults over 21 to grow up 
to six pot plants in private, and Washington had voted to permit 
state-licensed growers to sell adult individuals up to an ounce of 
marijuana at a time.

Nicholson was not available Wednesday to comment on the American 
state votes but his spokeswoman reiterated in an email that "our 
government does not support the decriminalization or the legalization 
of marijuana."

Julie Di Mambro added that "the production and trafficking of illicit 
drugs is one of the single most significant sources of money for 
gangs and organized crime in Canada."

Contrast that with Geoff Plant, a former British Columbia attorney 
general who supports the Stop the Violence BC coalition that is 
campaigning for legal changes.

"The take-away for politicians is to realize voters on both sides of 
the border are increasingly wanting this change, and that should make 
politicians both nervous about what will happen if they don't listen 
to voters and also less nervous about the risk associated with 
change," said Plant.

In Mexico City, Luis Videgaray, the main adviser to Mexico's 
president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, said the Washington and Colorado 
votes will force the Mexican government to rethink its efforts on 
halting marijuana smuggling across the border.

And Sean McAllister, a former assistant attorney general in Colorado, 
told Britain's Guardian newspaper Wednesday that "I really think this 
is the beginning of the end for marijuana prohibition, not only in 
the U.S., but in many countries across the world, including the U.K. 
We didn't just legalize it, we created a regulatory system."

The disconnect highlights a hemisphere-wide debate that is 
challenging the decades-long "war on drugs" that even the most 
staunch prohibitionist must concede has not succeeded in eradicating 
the illicit trade or use of drugs.

Eugene Oscapella, who teaches drug policy and criminology at the 
University of Ottawa, said one of the biggest impacts of Tuesday's 
state legalization votes may be on Canadian perceptions.

He noted 14 states have decriminalized pot, plus two that have now legalized.

"People have begun increasingly to realize the current system, the 
use of the criminal law, imports terrible, terrible collateral harms 
- - and it doesn't stop people from using drugs," Oscapella said.

The Colorado and Washington votes, he said, help undercut one of the 
most powerful arguments used in Canada to kill talk of relaxing the 
country's pot laws - American border concerns and the implications on trade.

"It's not a pro-pot measure," Oscapella said of the stateside votes. 
"This is a pro-sensible drug policy measure, looking at minimizing 
the harms of drugs in our society."

The federal Liberals are the only party with a legalization policy, 
which came after delegates to last January's party policy convention 
voted 77 per cent in favour of legalizing, regulating and taxing 
marijuana for personal use.

A spokesman for the Liberal party's youth wing, David Valentin, said 
a policy group in B.C. is working to flesh out a fully developed proposal.

Bob Rae, the interim Liberal leader, said the Conservative government 
is swimming against the tide.

"Any public opinion poll I've seen shows that Canadians believe 
there's a profound futility in the current punitive approach of the 
law, that we're filling our jails with people who shouldn't be there, 
and that the law does not serve a practical purpose," Rae said 
outside the Commons.

Legalization, he said, is "a direction the country needs to take and 
will take over time."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom