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Wait….what do you mean its not legal?
By Hempology | April 6, 2007
VueWeekly
Decriminalization Remains A Pipe Dream In Current Political Climate It was the subject of international hype a few years ago: the great liberal northern bastion of Canada was planning to decriminalize marijuana, snubbing its nose at its neo-conservative southern neighbors’ War on Drugs.
But the Liberal government that introduced the proposed decriminalization law let it die, and its Conservative successor has promised not to revive it.
Nonetheless, marijuana advocates can still see the criminal prohibition of pot being chiseled away through court cases, economic changes and the simple on-the-ground reality.
“The Conservatives definitely set it back, but there are many things happening,” said Ched Ander, an Edmonton pot activist.
Decriminalization should not be confused with legalization, which would remove all legal penalties and fines against growing, selling, possessing and using marijuana.
It also shouldn’t be mixed up with the legal use of marijuana for medical purposes, which the federal government permitted after an Ontario court decision in 2000.
Health Canada reacted to the ruling with a set of regulations on consuming medical marijuana, even contracting a supplier to produce dried pot and seeds in an old Manitoba mineshaft. The most recent political push to decriminalize pot for general use began in late 2002, when a Senate committee suggested that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol and should be regulated in a similar way.
A House of Commons committee followed up by suggesting that criminal charges were too harsh of a penalty for possessing small amounts of marijuana, and suggested decriminalizing possession of less than 30 grams.
The bill originally tabled in May 2003 under former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien decreed that possession of less than 15 grams should be legalized, but that legislation died on the order paper in the House.
A marijuana reform bill was introduced again in February 2004 and again that November under the minority government of Chretien’s successor, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin. Martin promised the law would be a priority but it never got past the committee stage.
“The Government of Canada believes that while cannabis use must be discouraged, possession of small amounts should not result in a criminal record,” read a news backgrounder on the last Liberal bill.
It called for a $150 fine for adults and a $100 fine for youths caught with up to 15 grams of marijuana, and a $300 fine for adults and a $200 fine for youths for possession of one gram or less of cannabis resin or hashish. The fines would have gone up to $400 for adults and $250 for youths in possession of these amounts while operating a vehicle, committing a serious crime or if found in or near a school.
Possession of between 15 and 30 grams would have either resulted in fines or six months in jail and/or a fine up to $1 000 for repeat offenders at the discretion of the police officer and the court.
“These reforms would also increase accountability among offenders, who would get a ticket instead of a simple warning, as is the case for about half of the individuals police find in possession of cannabis,” a press release said at the time.
The last Liberal bill proposed to replace the penalty for growing pot, which is punishable by up to seven-years imprisonment, with a sliding scale depending on the amount grown.
One to three plants would have resulted in a $500 fine, halved for youths, while growing four to 25 could have landed growers in jail up to five years, and more than 50 could have meant 14 years.
John Conroy, an Abbotsford, BC lawyer with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Canada, said he didn’t support the Liberal proposal.
“It would have resulted in even more people being charged” for pot offences, he said.
True decriminalization would mean turning over pot laws to the provinces, which are responsible for non-criminal statutes like motor-vehicle regulations, Conroy added.
Ander said the only good aspect of the proposed Liberal law was that certain people caught with pot would end up with no criminal record.
But he said the law did nothing to deal with the many problems that have popped up relating to growing and obtaining marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Many doctors are still hesitant to prescribe pot and insist on pharmaceutical products, a decision that Ander said treats patients like guinea pigs instead of letting them use a known treatment.
He spoke of one spina bifida patient who was denied pot to help his condition in favour of the pharmaceutical oxycodone and then became addicted to that drug.
Edmontonian activist Ken Ealey said medical growers selling pot for compassion at a lower price have run afoul of organized crime gangs selling it for profit, with sometimes-fatal consequences.
Ealey, who found marijuana treated his migraines after trying a series of pharmaceuticals, called the Liberal law “a cop out.”
“It was another cash grab,” added Ander, pointing to its series of fines.
He said the Western Canadian underground marijuana industry generates about $5 billion in revenue, which trickles up to the above-ground economy, benefiting governments in general.
His views mirror those of the conservative Fraser Institute, which predicted that legalizing and taxing cannabis would generate $2 billion in revenue for the BC government alone.
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are taking a law-and-order approach, after being elected on a platform that includes mandatory minimum prison sentences and large monetary fines for serious drug offenders, including marijuana.
Nobody from the opposition Liberals responded to Vue’s questions on whether the party’s pot position had changed since it was voted out of office.
Karl Belanger, a press secretary for NDP Leader Jack Layton, said his party does include marijuana decriminalization in its policy book, but advocates health-based harm-reduction policies.
“This includes accessible treatment … and a review of the negative impacts and social and economic costs of prohibitionist policies that criminalize drug users and exacerbate community impacts,” he said.
The NDP point-person for drug policy, Vancouver MP Libby Davies, plans to introduce a motion in Parliament “to focus national attention on the need for policy and law reform concerning illegal drug use,” Belanger added.
A subgroup within the party, eNDProhibition, seeks to legalize marijuana and replace the “‘war on drugs’ with a non-punitive system based upon accurate education, reduction of harm, regulated access and responsible use,” said its website.
NORML’s Conroy dismisses political promises to decriminalize, recalling how the Liberals broke past pledges going back to the 1970s under former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
“Politicians only do stuff that gets them re-elected,” he said, fingering all the parties for not reforming the pot laws. “They don’t have the guts to do it.”
Conroy doesn’t see decriminalization as being an issue in any upcoming national election as “most people don’t care at all. Most think it’s legal.”
The lawyer said there’s been a gradual lessening of marijuana penalties, with offences that would result in jail time 30 years ago netting a $100 fine today.
Courts just can’t get excited about pot prosecutions, he said, as they are more preoccupied with violent and property crimes.
The activists favour legalization, but say marijuana must also be regulated to ban additives and ensure quality and ought to be kept out of the hands of tobacco companies.
“I do worry,” Ander said, concerned that these companies would glamorize pot and push it on children. “That would be disgusting.”
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