Pubdate: Fri, 26 Feb 2016
Source: Telegram, The (CN NF)
Copyright: 2016 The Telegram
Contact:  http://www.thetelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/303
Author: Brian Jones
Page: A6

JOINT INJUSTICE FINALLY BURNING OUT

The long, unnecessary and monumentally stupid imposition of 
Prohibition 2 - pot prohibition - is finally coming to an end.

This week a Federal Court judge in Vancouver ruled in favour of 
medical marijuana users, saying they should be allowed to grow their 
own pot, and federal laws preventing them from doing so are unconstitutional.

Strangely enough, the judge's conclusions from the bench on high - so 
to speak - echo much of what hippies and potheads and rights 
activists have been saying about pot for half a century or so.

The federal government - i.e., the former Conservative federal 
government - had declared it was too dangerous to allow medical 
marijuana users to grow their own.

Nonsense, said the judge, and he gave the current Liberal government 
six months to change the laws.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs - four medical marijuana users - argued 
that forcing patients to acquire marijuana only through licensed 
producers denied them access to affordable medicine. Some patients 
had no choice but to break the law and grow their own, the lawyers stated.

The judge agreed. The patients have a constitutional right to grow 
their own, and can't be forced by the government to purchase 
"corporate pot," as some activists refer to it.

One of the plaintiffs' lawyers said the Federal Court ruling will 
influence the eventual legalization of marijuana.

"We proved that growing medical cannabis can be perfectly safe, and 
can be done completely in compliance with the law, and people ought 
to have a right to do that without fear of being arrested and locked 
in cages for that activity," he told reporters.

"The lessons, I think, are pretty obvious. If you can grow cannabis 
for yourself for medical purposes safely and with no risk for the 
public, surely you can grow cannabis for yourself for non-medical 
purposes safely and with no risk to the public."

This sounds familiar to anyone who has followed the issue over the 
years. Things like this have been said for decades, although it is 
only relatively recently that lawyers and judges have uttered such 
bold statements.

Typically, people who argued that marijuana should be legalized have 
been dismissed as drugged-up potheads, probably because, well, users 
felt more strongly about it than nonusers.

Such dismissals have been misguided because, as the events of recent 
years have shown, the antiquated and unjust marijuana laws are indeed 
an issue of rights. Today's lawyers and judges are finally saying the 
same things hippies were saying in the 1960s. You don't have to be a 
stoner to find that sort of funny.

Less funny is the fact that the illegality of marijuana has always 
been based on lies, illogic and societal hysteria.

Some arguments that have been around for decades have yet to be refuted:

* If marijuana is so dangerous that it has to be illegal, alcohol and 
tobacco - both far more dangerous and destructive - should also be illegal.

* The real danger of drugs arises from their being illegal. 
Legalizing drugs would make using them safer.

* Illegality, not the actual drugs, is the cause of pervasive drug crime.

* Keeping drugs illegal is a massive make-work project for cops and lawyers.

In high school, a friend and I were discussing the illegality of pot. 
She said, "If using marijuana leads to using hard drugs, why aren't 
there millions of heroin addicts?"

That was in 1975. She was 16 years old. With that single statement, 
she proved herself to be smarter than any MP who ever voted in 
Parliament to keep marijuana illegal.

Forty years later, legal minds have finally caught up to her. With 
any luck, this week's Federal Court ruling will help push the pot 
debate right past mere decriminalization and bring it to full legalization.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom