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Criminalizing cannabis has simply put the supply in the hands of criminals
By Hempology | July 18, 2007
The Daily News
July 10, 2007
David Rodenhiser
Smoking pot shouldn’t lead to criminal record
Recent statistics indicate how miserably prohibition has failed
Probably about half the people I hang out with socially are criminals, as am I. We haven’t been charged, tried or convicted of anything, but that’s only been a matter of luck. About 600,000 other Canadians haven’t been so fortunate and carry a criminal record for possessing marijuana.
It truly is reefer madness.
How else can you characterize Canada branding almost two per cent of its entire population as criminals for transgressions as minimal as smoking a joint? Honest, hard-working citizens wind up facing hurdles in gaining employment, or crossing the U.S. border, among other difficulties that come with having a record.
And their number is rising.
According to a Canadian Press story published yesterday, the number of people arrested for smoking marijuana spiked in several cities – including Halifax – after Stephen Harper’s Conservatives took power last year and killed a Liberal bill that would have decriminalized possessing less than 15 grams of marijuana.
Halifax Regional Police laid 171 charges for the simple possession of marijuana in 2006, up 47 per cent from the 116 charges laid in 2005. Most of those were “secondary charges,” where the suspect was arrested for another crime and found to be in possession of pot.
“Contrary to the notion of the benign drug that marijuana is, maybe it’s not so benign when you start to see the rise in associated disorder and other crimes,” Deputy Chief Chris McNeil said yesterday. “What you’re seeing is that people charged with other offences are also being charged with possession of marijuana.”
But is marijuana causing people to commit robberies, house breaks, assaults, mischief and other crimes, or are the people being apprehended for those crimes simply recreational tokers?
“I leave that to social scientists to figure out,” McNeil said.
Health Canada reported yesterday that 38 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older have smoked marijuana or hashish. Nova Scotians were the third most likely to have inhaled at 41 per cent, behind only British Columbians and Albertans.
Doing the math, that’s 9.8 million Canadians – including 313,000 Nova Scotians – who have broken the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Under that law, someone possessing more than 30 grams of marijuana, or one gram of hash, can be jailed for up to five years less a day. For smaller quantities, the maximum punishment is a $1,000 fine and six months behind bars.
McNeil said he doesn’t know of Haligonians being busted for smoking a single joint, but he can’t say it never happens. And as the Canadian Press story pointed out, the law is enforced unevenly and arbitrarily.
As an infrequent cannabis user since my early 20s, I’ve shared spliffs with other journalists, people in the arts and entertainment industry, government employees, office workers, business professionals and blue-collar stiffs. I’ve seen teachers, lawyers and members of the Armed Forces smoke pot. I’d be very surprised if there weren’t even occasional tokers among our politicians, doctors, police officers and judges.
Criminals, all of them, according to Canadian law.
The sheer prevalence of marijuana use as reported by Health Canada shows the folly in our drug laws. The pot prohibition Canada has been enforcing since 1923 – like all other prohibitions – has failed miserably.
The result is that valuable resources are spent on criminalizing otherwise law-abiding Canadians. It’s been estimated that the federal and provincial governments spend between $300 million and $500 million a year enforcing the law against simple possession of cannabis. That’s money that could be better spent on anti-drug education and addiction treatment programs.
The other result of prohibition is the fostering of organized crime to feed the demand. Marijuana production is thought to be a $10 billion industry in Canada – three times the value of the nation’s biggest legal cash crop, wheat. Much of it is co-ordinated by criminal organizations also involved in hard drugs, prostitution and murder.
Parliament could cripple those organizations by turning that production over to licensed farmers. But that’s a pipe dream that goes beyond mere decriminalization.
“This whole debate, quite frankly, is clouded by the misguided romantic view of ‘the joint I smoked in college,’” McNeil said. “It, in fact, is a much different drug than it was 35 years ago.”
True. Plant-breeding and hydroponics have produced marijuana with levels of THC – the main psychoactive compound in cannabis – much higher than the bud they smoked at Woodstock. But the fact remains that a significant portion of the Canadian population still chooses to partake in it with no significant damage to society or their own health. Moreover, on a philosophical level, what business does government have telling you what you can, or can’t, ingest?
McNeil says the “earlier and earlier onset” of marijuana use in young people is his biggest concern in the marijuana debate. I agree.
But it’s obvious that criminalizing marijuana hasn’t kept it away from kids. Instead, it’s put the supply in the hands of criminals. It’s made it much easier for a 12-year-old to buy pot than beer.
David Rodenhiser expects to receive a call today from his mother. Don’t worry, Mrs. Rodenhiser, he’s not a pot-head.
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