Pubdate: Thu, 26 Dec 2013
Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN)
Copyright: 2013 The StarPhoenix
Contact: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/400
Author: James Keller

RESEARCHER SAYS MEDIA AND POLICE NOT TALKING STRAIGHT ON POT

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 toward 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.

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 cited a 2011 Justice Department study, 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," says Boyd. "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."
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