JUSTICE ARGUES POT'S NOT SO BAD

Politicians Should Listen To Her View That Marijuana Is No More Harmful
Than Alcohol

Mary Southin, one of three B.C. Appeal Court justices acquitting a
Vancouver couple charged with running a grow operation last week, took the
opportunity to say a few things about marijuana, a substance which she now
finds no more dangerous than alcohol.

She said Parliament has been "hoodwinked" about anti-pot "propaganda," that
arresting and prosecuting marijuana users and traffickers is little more
than a make-work exercise for police, lawyers and judges, and suggests that
Parliament should back off marijuana and allow it to be regulated, like
liquor, by the provinces.

Southin is probably as well known for her smoking habits as for her
judgments -- taxpayers had to pay to have her office in the Vancouver
courthouse ventilated so she could smoke cigarettes there in violation of
the law. But her reasons for judgment can bristle with common sense that
other jurists are more cautious about expressing.

She has called the law "a profession of mercenaries." She has expressed
understanding for victims of crime who might think Canada is "lawless and
unjust" when new trials are ordered in some cases. She has said making
possession of pornography a crime "bears the hallmark of tyranny." She has
not found "any particular harm" in prisoners smoking pot.

This time, her views on marijuana couldn't be more timely. The government
has introduced a bill -- slated to go ahead after Parliament's summer break
- -- to make possession of up to 15 grams of pot an offence, but not a crime.
Provincial governments, including B.C.'s, are categorically opposed to
decriminalizing marijuana possession. U.S. authorities are warning that
special measures will have be taken to prevent this permissiveness north of
the border corrupting American youth and encouraging organized crime.

Southin said in her judgment that she is giving her own reasons for
acquitting the pot-growers only because "the seriousness of the crime" is
one of the elements that have to be considered in marijuana cases. While
she once thought marijuana offences were serious, she stated, she doesn't
any longer, though Parliament has been "hoodwinked" into thinking they are.

Growing, trafficking in and possessing marijuana, Southin said, has created
a lot of work for police, lawyers and judges, though "whether that work
contributes to peace, order and good government is another matter." Pot,
she said, "appears to be of no greater danger to society than alcohol."

Southin compared marijuana prohibition to the attempt to prohibit alcohol
in Canada after the First World War -- an effort, she observed, that didn't
work. She finds it "curious" that no one has challenged federal laws
against marijuana on the grounds it is not of national concern and
therefore should fall under provincial jurisdiction.

"Parliament, having long since yielded to provincial legislatures the
regulation of alcohol, perhaps might consider yielding the regulation of
marijuana," Southin says.

Federal politicians are having trouble enough making the first, small step
to decriminalizing simple possession. They may find that, as in homosexual
marriage and other social issues, judges are in more of a hurry. Other
judges have downplayed the harm done by the drug.

The politicians should pay attention to the smoke signals coming from the
Vancouver courthouse.