Pubdate: Thu, 26 Dec 2013
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2013 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: 
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor.html
Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Author: James Keller

MEDIA, POLICE SKEW INFO ON POT, RESEARCHER CLAIMS

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 American 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," says 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, says Boyd.

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 says, 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 inextricably linked to gangs and other 
criminal organizations. Police spokespeople were frequently quoted 
explaining that modern-day grow ops are not "mom and pop" operations.

But Boyd says the federal government's own research does not support that claim.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom