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Claims by politicians and police that we need tougher drug-law enforcement
to stop Canadian marijuana flooding the United States have become pretty
much conventional wisdom. It's time that changed.

Because of this conventional wisdom, we can expect the re-introduction of
legislation raising sentences on growers when Parliament convenes. But
before that happens, we would suggest parliamentarians take note of the
latest RCMP report on drugs in Canada because, whether the Mounties
intended it or not, the report contains powerful evidence that the
conventional wisdom is completely wrong.

Exports of what is described in Canadian law as "marihuana" -- the law's
spelling, like its thinking, is still stuck in the 1930s -- are indeed a
"thriving industry," the RCMP notes in The Drug Situation in Canada, 2003.
But for the first time, the Mounties put that industry in perspective.
"Most of the marihuana available on the American illicit market still
originates primarily in the U.S. and in Mexico. Canada ranks far below
Mexico as a source for the U.S."

Far below, indeed. In 2003, the report states, U.S. Customs seized over
400,000 kilograms of pot on the border with Mexico. In the same year, it
netted a little more than 15,000 kilograms on the Canadian border. Seizures
are only rough indicators of what's really going on in black markets, but
these numbers suggest Mexican pot exports are 27 times higher than ours.

The report also notes, briefly, that the single largest source of marijuana
in the U.S. is neither Canada nor Mexico, but the United States itself.
This fact is critical, yet the Mounties downplay it in the report.

Unlike Canada, no one says the U.S. is soft on marijuana. Under American
federal sentencing guidelines, cultivation offences that might get as
little as a few weeks in jail or even a conditional sentence here are
punished with three to seven years in prison. And many state laws are even
tougher. Major growers often face 10, 20, or 30 years in prison -- even
life without parole. An estimated 100,000 Americans are currently behind
bars for marijuana offences.

Canadian police often note the disparity in punishments between Canada and
the U.S., but what they never say is what good has all that punishment
done. That's because there's no evidence it has done any good.

A U.S. Department of Justice report noted, "96.9 per cent of state and
local law enforcement agencies nationwide describe the availability of
marijuana as high or medium." And a survey of American teenagers found 89
per cent say it is "very easy" or "fairly easy" to get pot. The U.S. is
awash in weed, probably more now than at any time in its history. And, as
the RCMP admits, the biggest growers of that weed are Americans undeterred
by the mighty American war on drugs. Naturally, the RCMP would rather we
not conclude that the fight against marijuana is a futile and destructive
waste of money, but the Mounties' own report, if read with care and a
little background knowledge, leaves no alternative.

Keep that in mind when Parliament returns and the inevitable clamour for
more enforcement and tougher sentences resumes.