Pubdate: Thu, 26 Dec 2013
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: James Keller
Page: A4

MEDIA AND POLICE FORCES NOT TALKING STRAIGHT ON POT, SAYS B. C. RESEARCHER

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.

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.

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," 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."

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, says Boyd. In contrast, an RCMP- funded study from
2005 says police found "firearms or other hazards" in only six per
cent of grow op cases examined.

The RCMP, which Boyd focuses on heavily in the book, declined to
respond to her criticisms.
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