MACISAAC CASE BAD PRECEDENT

In a province whose rates of impaired driving and associated injury and
death consistently double or triple the national average, the Saskatchewan
justice system blew it with its lenient treatment of infamous Maritime
fiddler Ashley MacIsaac in a case involving marijuana use.

This was not a simple case of someone contravening Canada's outdated and
draconian laws that make possession of pot a criminal offence that warrants
jail time.

When the RCMP pulled over MacIsaac on July 27 for speeding near Aylesbury
on Highway 11, among the busiest roadways in the province, an officer
noticed a "strong smell of cannabis" wafting out when the driver lowered
his window. Inside the vehicle, police found a bag with eight grams of pot,
with a search yielding a hash pipe and another four grams of marijuana.

Had police detected a strong smell of alcohol, chances are that they'd make
the fool behind the wheel take a breathalyser and charge him with impaired
operation of a motor vehicle. The strong smell of pot, however, garnered
MacIsaac no more than a charge for possession.

In court this week, where MacIsaac sent a lawyer to represent him, what
Justice Linton Smith wanted to know was whether the charge involved "the
Ashley MacIsaac." Informed that it did, Smith jokingly wanted to know
whether lawyer Jayme Day could procure MacIsaac's autograph for his wife.

With the Crown opting to prosecute the case as a summary offence that
carried a maximum penalty of $2,000 and a year's jail time, Smith accepted
a guilty plea and gave MacIsaac an absolute discharge and no fine.

The discharge leaves the controversial performer, who readily admits in
interviews to a past addiction to crack cocaine and the use of LSD and pot,
with no criminal record and the freedom to cross the U.S. border.

Consider the treatment meted out to MacIsaac with the thousands of other
cases involving impaired drivers brought before the courts each year (6,746
in 2000). No judge wants to know if it's the John White or, as the prison
records sadly attest, the Joe Aboriginal who's before him. In these cases,
a known history of substance abuse has a bearing on the outcome; the charge
an individual faces is more likely to bring a heavy fine, loss of licence
or even jail time; the system doesn't care what consequences a criminal
record will have on the offender's freedom to come and go.

At best, the MacIsaac case points to a troubling double standard in the
system. At worst, it does nothing to discourage other potheads from getting
behind the wheel while stoned or achieving that state while driving.