MARIJUANA LAWS A CONFUSING MESS

Four years ago, then-prime-minister Jean Chretien brought in a bill
to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Unfortunately, that bill never became law, though many Canadians
believe its outlines guide current policing. But that's not so. In
fact, Canadian marijuana law is a shambles, with uneven enforcement
and inconsistencies at every stage.

Perhaps that's one reason why marijuana use is so great in this
country - a new United Nations study says Canadians use marijuana at
four times the world average, the highest rate in the industrialized world.

Statistics about illegal practices are by nature less than precise,
but the experts at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime say that 16.8 per
cent of Canadians age 15 to 64 smoked marijuana or used another
cannabis product in 2006, while the world average is 3.8 per cent.

Canada ranked third for cocaine, with 2.3 per cent of the population
using that drug in 2006, the report said. The social and medical
consensus against cocaine is clear, but society's ambiguity about
marijuana has led to policy paralysis and enforcement chaos.

News reports say that statistics expected next week suggest that
marijuana-possession arrests are up sharply in many Canadian cities,
but down in others, since the Conservative government came to power
in January 2006.

Of course, it's not the Conservatives who decide on arrest rates. But
police forces take their cues, sometimes, from government policy. And
in May, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government introduced a new
strategy with an emphasis on a tougher approach to illegal drugs,
coupled with additional funding for a campaign to prevent illegal drug use.

Again, no new law has been passed spelling out exactly what norms
ordinary citizens or law-enforcement agencies are expected to abide by.

That Chretien-era decriminalization idea is looking better and
better. Under that plan, having less than 15 grams would have become
a non-criminal offence, with sanctions limited to fines. Chretien
promised that his strategy would also find ways to discourage young
people from using drugs, as well as going after drug traffickers.

It seemed an intelligent compromise: Many young people would escape
being saddled with a criminal record, but traffickers would not be
given a free pass.

At the time, the number of Canadians charged every year with
marijuana possession had climbed to over 25,000. It is an
understatement to say these cases clogged the courts. Part of the
Liberals' thinking was that court time could be spent more usefully.

Even so, Chretien proposed decriminalization, not legalization, an
important distinction. Marijuana's negative side-effects include
memory loss, anxiety, paranoia, respiratory distress and addiction.
These are not inconsequential issues.

The persistent legal ambiguity is hard on everyone. As long as
marijuana remains an illegal drug, laws governing possession, growing
and trafficking of it should be applied fairly and uniformly across
the country.

But in all the current circumstances, it's difficult to understand
why possession of marijuana for personal use remains a criminal offence.