NOT THE TIME TO PUSH POT LAWS TOO FAR

The Federal Government Is Already Being More Progressive Than The Courts
Would Be

As Parliament prepares to pass a law that would make marijuana possession a
crime no longer, pot activists are vowing to make it unworkable. Why?
Because they think that if they can make the law unworkable Parliament will
cave in and make pot possession legal.

These latter-day hippies should exhale. By frustrating this admittedly
cautious attempt to deal sensibly with the issue -- tying cases up in the
courts, challenging every toking ticket -- they are in danger of setting
the country back a generation. They'd be better to make it work so well
that further reforms will be possible.

The new law would stipulate that anyone caught with up to 15 grams of pot
or growing up to three marijuana plants should receive the equivalent of a
parking ticket and fines of up to $500, instead of a potential prison
sentence and a criminal record. Everyone -- especially parents of
teenagers, 225,000 or more of whom smoke pot daily -- agrees that the
present punishment doesn't fit what shouldn't be a crime.

But not everyone agrees with the activists that marijuana possession should
be legal -- even though a Senate report in 2002 said it should be, and many
health professionals say it's less a hazard than alcohol or tobacco. Few
would agree today with the 1938 headline in the Toronto Star: "Marijuana
smokers seized with sudden craze to kill."

The effects of pot are thought to be pretty benign compared to booze:
Doctors and pharmacologists said it induces relaxation, helps some people
sleep, blunts the nauseating effects of cancer treatments and anti-HIV drug
cocktails, counters some neuropathic pain and in high concentrations works
like an anti-inflammatory.

But researchers note that THC, the main ingredient in marijuana, can be
rapidly absorbed, sometimes changing the function of cells, increasing the
risk of cancer, impairing immune defences, becoming a potent trigger for
heart attacks, and impairing driving skills.

The Senate concluded that if pot is no more harmful, or less so, than
alcohol, its production, distribution and consumption should be regulated
in the same way. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mary Southin has observed that
if the courts find marijuana use doesn't pose a serious risk, there's no
reason why Parliament should be regulating its use at all, and that the
provinces should take over its regulation as they have in the case of liquor.

For a while it looked as if the courts would force the Paul Martin
government to move toward greater liberalization of pot laws -- the Ontario
Court of Appeal at one point last year declared there was no law against
simple possession because Parliament had not provided those who required
marijuana for health reasons a way to get it.

But the Supreme Court of Canada in December found Parliament has the right
to prescribe criminal or other sanctions against the use of cannabis, since
its health risks are not "insignificant or trivial," and that the Charter
of Rights and Freedoms doesn't justify protecting people from prosecution
based on their lifestyle choices. Three of the seven justices, however,
said the government hasn't shown pot causes serious enough risk of harm to
justify criminalization.

The government, then, in pressing ahead with decriminalization for simple
possession of marijuana, is ahead of the majority position of the Supreme
Court. And that is too much for police forces across the country.

They point out that without being able to apprehend those possessing a
small amount of pot in their homes, they are unable to apprehend those
possessing a small amount on the street for sale. They argue
decriminalization impedes their ability to act against organized criminals
who are trafficking in marijuana and other drugs.

And then there are the U.S. drug enforcement authorities, watching in
horror while B.C. Bud crosses over the border by the truckload and in the
backpacks of 16-year-old girls as part of an international trade in drugs
and weapons.

Martin wants to renew our traditional friendship with the Americans; he
can't do that by legalizing a substance that the Americans still regard as
a threat to Homeland security.

When attitudes change in the U.S. -- as they are changing over the issue of
same-sex marriage -- we may be able to risk greater liberalization of our
pot laws, but not now.

Our relationship with the U.S. is too valuable to let it go up in smoke.