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Conservatives most likely to take “as hard a line as possible” in response to Ontario Court’s recent decision
By Hempology | August 2, 2007
Maclean’s Magazine, Canada
31 Jul 2007
Philippe Gohier
SORRY TO HARSH YOUR BUZZ
It sounded like a cool idea at the time, but were we ever really going to decriminalize marijuana?
Is pot legal? The answer to that seems as cloudy as, well, you know.
Responding to the complaint of a Toronto man charged with possession, the Ontario Court recently found Canada’s marijuana laws to be without merit. “The government told the public not to worry about access to marijuana,” said Judge Howard Borenstein.
“They have a policy but not law.. In my view that is unconstitutional.”
Though the individual involved was not seeking a medicinal exemption to possess the drug, he successfully argued the government’s failure to follow up medicinal regulations ( announced in 2001 ) with law put all rules of possession in doubt.
“For the time being, nothing changes,” a police spokesman said. “We have to wait and see what happens with the process through the courts.”
With that, Ottawa finds itself with the makings of another marijuana debate. Only this time it could be a short one. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has left little doubt where the Conservatives stand, saying the government “has no intention” to follow through on the long, lost Liberal promise of decriminalization. “[Marijauna is] much stronger than it was years ago and, in some cases, marijuana may be laced with more dangerous chemicals,” Nicholson said. “There is also evidence it may lead to experimentation with other drugs. It’s not something we want to encourage.”
The latest judicial decision echoed several previous verdicts, including a much-publicized decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2003. At that time, it looked like politicians were going to seize the issue and proceed with progressive reforms. But the narrative arc of Canada’s pot saga now seems all too predictable, especially given its subject matter. First came the high, marked by unbridled ambition and absolute righteousness; then the lull, when significant obstacles emerged; and finally, the crash, when everyone involved took a well-deserved rest from having accomplished, well, nothing at all.
Just prior to the 2003 decision that exempted private tokers for one smoke-filled summer, the federal government had already entertained loosening the rules. In a speech at a fundraising dinner that April, outgoing prime minister Jean Chretien even dabbled in stoner humour. “We’re not legalizing it, we’re decriminalizing,” he said. “So you will have another ticket for losing your senses, or something like that.”
The previous September, a Senate committee chaired by Pierre-Claude Nolin recommended a more radical shift in direction: outright legalization. “Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol,” he said, “and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue.”
But the government couldn’t do that. As signatory to a plethora of international treaties, Canada must keep its marijuana law on the books. That’s why, in 2003, former justice minister Martin Cauchon proposed reforms – though widely termed “decriminalization” – that would have maintained the criminal character of marijuana, but reduced penalties to a mere fine ( effectively taking the matter out of the criminal system ).
Cauchon now says the bill was meant to take into account the reality of Canadians’ ( apparently prodigious ) pot-smoking patterns.
“The current laws are unreasonable,” he explains. “If the legislation was any good and they really wanted to apply it, they could just head down to a rock concert at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Of the 20,000 people there, 2,000 to 3,000 will smoke a joint. Just get in there and arrest them all. Put them all in jail.”
The proposed reforms came at a particularly jubilant time in recent Canadian history, a mood so infectious even the prime minister was looking to kick back and spark up. Once done putting the finishing touches on a whirlwind bit of legacy-building – including the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, support for same-sex marriage and a prescient decision to keep troops out of Iraq – Chretien openly mused about taking advantage of the lax new laws. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand,” he said. The world’s political tastemakers were impressed. “Today’s Canada is neither boring nor so exciting that it is on the brink of disintegration,” read a September 2003 article in The Economist. “Indeed, a cautious case can be made that Canada is now rather cool.”
Cool as it was, Cauchon’s bill languished on the Commons floor, buried by elections in 2004 and 2006. And while public support remained high ( a Maclean’s poll in 2003 showed 58 per cent of Canadians supported decriminalization, a figure that has remained steady ever since ), opposition proved vociferous.
The Canadian Police Association, MADD and the union representing Canadian border agents all spoke against the bill, warning of a “high price for our society,” especially our “impressionable youth.” U.S. drug czar John Walters linked decriminalization to international relations, suggesting his country wouldn’t take kindly to any increase in the amount of marijuana coming across the border. “The problem today, is that Canadian production of high-potency marijuana in British Columbia is a major source of marijuana [in the United States]… and it’s spreading,” he said. “Just like cocaine, shipped up from Mexico.”
( Canada’s self-styled “prince of pot,” Marc Emery now blames such concerns for the failure of decriminalization efforts in Canada. The battle for reforming pot legislation, he says, simply isn’t worth fighting so long as the Americans haven’t been won over – “It has to happen from America.” )
Inside the House, the Canadian Alliance supported decriminalization for small amounts of weed, but objected to the initial 30 gram limit. Former Alliance MP Randy White said those with that many joints were invariably “going to sell them to kids.”
Such opposition might not have been a problem had the Liberal majority been able to hold. Ontario MP Dan McTeague complained the government was “sanctioning or tolerating [marijuana] as produced by major elements of organized crime.” Even senior cabinet members were thought to be reluctant. Then-health minister Anne McLellan emphasized that “we do not want Canadians to use marijuana,” while prime-minister-in-waiting Paul Martin, then out of cabinet and openly campaigning against Chretien, argued that the government needed to adopt a U.S.-style approach to illicit drugs.
When Martin finally took the reins, any remaining enthusiasm was lost. Even though Martin’s justice minister, Irwin Cotler, re-introduced Cauchon’s decriminilization bill word-for-word, the legislative focus had shifted from reducing punishment to catching drug-impaired drivers. And in the hands of a more cautious prime minister, “decriminalization” became the stuff of “alternate penalty frameworks.”
Four years later, Cauchon, a would-be prince of pot himself, thinks Harper’s Conservatives are unlikely to stray from their traditional law-and-order approach, predicting they will take “as hard a line as possible” in response to the Ontario Court’s recent decision. In doing so, the Tories will likely send the issue back to the courts and away from the political stage, framing the issue as a legal rather than legislative one.
And with that the buzz – perhaps premature and ill-fated from the start – may officially be over.
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