SENATOR NOLIN SAYS PARLIAMENT CAN'T IGNORE GAP IN PUBLIC OPINION

Tory Senator Pierre Claude Nolin's Mission On Senate Committee On
Illegal Drugs To Decriminalize Marijuana

Nearly two decades after then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau included
the legalization of marijuana in his party's Speech from the Throne,
and in the same year that featured candidates for a pro-cannabis
political party in the British Columbia election, Canada's drug
legalization warriors finally seem to be finding a place on the
public policy front.

But not everyone's happy about it.

While the Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs hears arguments
from international experts, academics and legalization advocates on
whether to call a cease fire in the war on drugs, not everyone
welcomes this apparent shift in the balance of power and public
opinion.

Canadian Police Association President Gary Obst said the message that
the Senate committee has heard from many of its witnesses so far may
not accurately reflect the view of the general public, despite polls
indicating that support for legalization has steadily risen over the
last decade.

"From the information I've gotten, I understand that a number of
groups came forward for decriminalization on marijuana, and I'm not
sure if they also heard from groups that don't support it. But as a
result of our presentation, I've done a number of radio talk shows,
and generated a lot of interest in the part of the country where I'm
located - Saskatoon - and the general consensus was that the
population for the most part supported our position.

That may not have been reflected in what the committee heard," said Mr. Obst.

Tory Senator Pierre Claude Nolin (De Salaberry, Que.) has spent years
studying Canada's drug laws and was the driving force behind both the
current Senate committee and its predecessor. He spearheaded the
creation of the Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs as a direct
result of evidence that he saw while on the committee studying C-8 in
1996, the bill to amend the Narcotics Act and other Criminal Code
provisions related to drugs.

He denies that the committee witness list is biased in favour of the
pro-liberalization forces, but notes that it's just not that easy to
find serious researchers who support the status quo.

"We're trying to be balanced, but it is very difficult to find
researchers, scholars, people who are really studying the problem who
will come to the conclusion that we should maintain the status quo.
We know that there are some people who do, most in the United States
and some in Geneva, and we will hear from them," said Sen. Nolin,
adding that the committee is trying to organize hearings outside of
Ottawa this fall, where he plans to hear from witnesses who have
'anecdotal evidence.'

Said Sen. Nolin: "But there is a difference between those types of
witnesses, and I have imposed on me, and the committee, a very
rigorous approach."

Sen. Nolin isn't shy about indicating his own leanings on the subject
- - as well as his uncertainty about how the government should proceed
in changing the current legal morass surrounding drug use.

"My opinion is that prohibition doesn't work, but what is the
solution? I don't know. Because it doesn't seem to work, I want to
hear the real scientific and knowledge-based testimony to make sure
that we can have a more intelligent policy."

The CPA presented its brief to the committee last month, which argued
against decriminalization of marijuana, and called on political
leaders to stop sending conflicting messages to Canada's youth.

Mr. Obst argued that, in fact, the changeover from the old Narcotics
Control Act to the Controlled Drug and Substance Act "was, in effect,
a decriminalization of marijuana."

He pointed out that the law currently allows for strictly summary
charges for possession of marijuana under 30 grams.

"If someone is actually charged, it is a summary offence - they
aren't photographed or fingerprinted. They do have a criminal record
if convicted, but it's subject to a pardon after two years.

We went through a decriminalization of sorts at that time."

He said he believes that there is little mainstream understanding of
what this change meant for Canada's drug policy - and that could be
one of the reasons for the growth in support for liberalization.

"I don't think a lot of mainstream people know that. If they did know
that there was a decriminalization of sorts, it might readjust their
attitude.

If they knew the truth about what happens to people who are caught
with one or two joints, they would be more likely to support our
position," he said.

Ottawa lawyer and longtime decriminalization advocate Eugene
Oscapella, head of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, appeared
before the Senate committee last fall, and said he's puzzled by the
CPA's current position.

"It's definitely not the view of the police officer on the street
from what we've heard.

Many police officers see [the current policy] as futile, and I can't
understand why their position has changed so radically. Their brief
reads like a page out of U.S. propaganda."

Somebody got to them, he said.

"I don't know how they've bought the American propaganda, but the
presentation before the Senate committee was extremely unscientific,
and relied on pseudo science and sweeping generalizations," said Mr.
Oscapella.

Mr. Oscapella recalled that in 1994, when the issue came up during
hearings on Bill C-8, a revamp of the then-current drug laws, the CPA
was widely reported as being in support of decriminalization.

"The association never said it was their official position, but it
was widely reported as such, and they never retracted it. It's a bit
disingenuous to say it wasn't. But now the tables have turned."

Sen. Nolin agreed that there is a renewed energy on the part of the
pro-liberalization forces, thanks to legal and political moves in the
last few years that indicate a potential softening of the traditional
hard line stance on drugs:

Declared Sen. Nolin: "There's definitely a momentum - I'd love to say
it's because of me, but I can only take a bit of that personally.
There is a coincidence of a few things: the courts, they were very
important because they were the first to force the Heath Minister to
give an exemption for medicinal use, but that's not the end of the
story.

The courts will one day deal with recreational use."

He also pointed to public opinion.

"There is a gap between the population and the politicians. There are
a lot of Canadians using drugs, and a criminal act which says there
is a total prohibition. Who is wrong, the population or the
government? The answer is probably somewhere in between.

But Parliament cannot ignore the gap between the attitude of the
population and the normative."

Sen. Nolin said he's also encouraged by Alliance MP Randy White's
(Langley-Abbotsford, B.C.) successful motion last month to set up a
parallel Commons committee to look at the issue at the same time as
his committee will be doing its work.

"We called for a joint committee in 1996 when we tabled our report on
C-8, which they didn't take, but that's fine. It means that more
people will be studying it."

The Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs will submit a report by
August of 2002, while the Commons committee, which has yet to be
created, will likely report by November 2002.

For his part, Mr. Obst isn't as enthusiastic about the new committee:
"It seems kind of redundant - there are larger issues we could be
concentrating on."

He also takes a pragmatic approach to the latest push for a change in
policy. "This has been around as long as I've been policing.

Although it has gathered a little gusto, we go through this every few
years, and then it goes away. There's nothing that leads me to
believe that it's going to change."

On the other side of the debate, Mr. Oscapella claimed to have good
reason to be optimistic over the latest developments in the battle
for liberalization.

"We have a much better-informed Canadian public who are beginning to
challenge the propaganda, and Parliamentarians react to public
opinion.

They are going to be hearing from more and more constituents who are
fed up with the drug laws," he said.

He said he also places "a lot of faith in the intellectual rigor of
Senate committees," and said he's waiting to see what the House
committee does.

"I hope the House committee will prove to be as good, but
traditionally, they haven't gone for the reasoned analysis.

The Senate committee is hearing from excellent witnesses. The CPA may
claim they're biased, but we've heard the other line for 90 years."

Moreover, he pointed to the decision by the Supreme Court to hear the
Clay case, which challenges the law against cannabis on
constitutional grounds.

"The courts might decide that the law is unconstitutional, and then
it would be up to Parliament to draw up regulatory measurements,
which is what we've called for. The case hasn't been heard yet, but
will be before the court sometime in the fall, so everything could
sort of gel in 2002. Things have to change at some point - people
realize what we're doing isn't working. Some might think that this is
a debate on people's liberty to smoke drugs, but it's far beyond
that. It's about protecting the basic human rights of all
individuals."