Pubdate: Thu, 26 Dec 2013
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: James Keller

THE STRAIGHT DOPE OBSCURED IN MARIJUANA COVERAGE: PROF

VANCOUVER - As it turns out, Nov. 6, 2012, was a big day for marijuana laws.

Voters in Colorado and Washington state approved initiatives to 
legalize pot, setting the stage for the regulated production and sale 
of the drug. Several other jurisdictions in the U.S. have since followed suit.

In Canada, the same day two U.S. states were effectively abandoning 
part of the war on drugs, provisions of a new federal law came into 
effect that imposed strict mandatory minimums for drug-related 
crimes, including marijuana production.

The contrast, says University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd, could 
not have been greater.

"This new law and our revived war on drugs in Canada is so contrary 
to what's going on around the world," said Boyd, who specializes in 
drug law and drug policy.

"It seemed like Canada was veering towards a very punitive model 
while the rest of the world was taking a closer look at mandatory 
minimums and abandoning them."

But the revisions to Canada's drug laws - contained in the Safe 
Streets and Communities Act, or Bill C-10, as it was previously known 
- - did not happen in a vacuum, Boyd said.

Instead, Boyd argues in a forthcoming book that Canada's recent 
tough-on crime approach to drugs is, in part, the product of decades 
of skewed media coverage and police messaging that has routinely 
exaggerated the dangers of the marijuana industry and its connection 
to organized crime.

For the book, titled Killer Weed: Marijuana Grow Ops, Media, and 
Justice, Boyd examined 2,500 articles from four major daily 
newspapers in British Columbia from 1995 to 2009.

She found news coverage about cannabis enforcement in B.C. frequently 
contained inaccurate information or exaggerated claims about the size 
and scope of the underground marijuana industry, the sorts of people 
associated with grow-ops and the industry's connection to gangs.

Assertions by police - particularly the RCMP, which is responsible 
for policing in much of B.C. - were left unchallenged, she said, and 
politicians, in turn, relied on such misinformation to push for 
stricter drug laws.

For example, the news articles she examined repeatedly asserted 
marijuana grow-ops are inextricable linked to gangs and other 
criminal organizations. Police spokespeople were frequently quoted as 
explaining that modern-day grow-ops are not "mom and pop" operations.

But Boyd said the federal government's research does not support that claim.

She cited a Justice Department study that was completed in 2011, 
obtained by a reporter through an access-to-information request, that 
examined a random sample of 500 marijuana grow operations. Of those, 
just five per cent had apparent links to gangs or organized crime.

"This study wasn't released by our federal government, and you could 
see why," Boyd said.

"It doesn't fit with their Safe Streets and Communities Act, which 
frames marijuana grow-ops as always being associated with organized 
crime and gangs. I would say it's probably the reverse."

Boyd's examination found the RCMP's public statements about the scope 
of the marijuana trade relied on research that tallied the number of 
suspected or alleged cases, rather than instances in which a grow-op 
was confirmed, which almost doubled the rate at which such activity 
had increased.

The RCMP - and, consequently, the news media - often linked marijuana 
grow-ops to guns, Boyd said. In contrast, an RCMP funded study from 
2005 found police found "firearms or other hazards" in only six per 
cent of grow op cases examined.

And the value of the industry has been valued by RCMP spokesmen at 
anywhere from $1 billion to $8 billion a year, Boyd said.

She said police and politicians might be exaggerating the dangers of 
the marijuana trade because standard say-no-to-drugs messaging hasn't 
worked. Almost half of Canadians admit to trying pot at least once.

"We can see from our drug-use statistics that Canadians use marijuana 
and a small percentage of people use it regularly," she said.

The RCMP, on which Boyd focused heavily in the book, declined to 
respond to her criticisms.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom