LIBERALS GONE WACKY WITH DOPEY RULES FOR T'BACCY

Cancel those freedom-to-toke parties, potheads. The days of dopey Canadian
marijuana laws have only just begun.

Consider a hardened criminal scenario under the proposed "cannabis reform"
legislation unveiled Tuesday by a trio of tightly scripted ("we are not
legalizing marijuana") cabinet ministers.

The pot smoker harvests some leaves from one of four wacky t'baccy plants
being cultivated in a nearby farmer's cornfield, grinds it into 35 joints of
homegrown high, adjourns to the patio of a private residence which overlooks
the local high school for a happy sampling.

Enter the law. Down come multiple charges. Add up the damage.

- - The guilty could get 18 months in the slammer or a $25,000 fine for having
more than three plants.

- - Those 35 grams of grass, or roughly 30 "make those super-size" joints,
exceed the law's mere possession provisions and attract a trafficking
charge.

- - Smoking up near a school and growing marijuana on someone else's weed-free
property are considered aggravating circumstances, which would force the
trial judge to declare reasons for NOT bundling the guilty toker off to
jail.

Gosh. Decriminalization never sounded so deadly.

After a royal commission, a Senate committee, a Commons committee and
endless studies, all urging government to stop creating petty criminals out
of pot possession, the government finally had the right idea.

This was the government's brain: reduce possession to a ticketed fine as a
way to unclog the courts, free up police resources for more serious drug
pursuits and prevent a criminal record from haunting drug-dabbling kids for
life.

This was their brain on drugs: Try to please everyone by creating a
nightmarish patchwork of legislated circumstances and variable fines.

Substance won't matter, be it potent B.C. bud or a pale imitation.

Size and location will be everything, right down to where the nabbed dude
was sitting (driver or passenger) in a car.

As Solicitor General Wayne Easter declared: "The intent of the law is for
greater enforcement and for the courts to impose greater penalties."

Such is the hallucinating effect marijuana has had on federal politicians.

Less law is actually more. Decriminalization is aimed at creating more
crimes.

Preserving taxpayers' cash is about spending more money on inefficient
enforcement practices and public advertising. And saving police time comes
with enhanced police responsibility.

For example, officers who had the discretion to let a dope-tripper off with
a verbal warning are now forced into the role of marijuana meter maid,
writing tickets after carefully weighing the collected evidence to see if
it's 15 grams ($150 fine) or 20 grams ($400), with added responsibility to
decide if the nabbed gets the $50 youth discount or pays the full adult
fine.

Weed cultivation provisions are equally wacky.

Get caught growing five plants and you could rate five years in jail.

If the helicopters find your stash of 500 plants, the guilty grower could
get 14 years, a sentence no sane judge would pass in any event.

So the more you grow, the less you serve proportionately.

And pity those poor cannabis cops on another front.

There's a commendable push to clamp down on drivers flying high behind the
wheel.

While my memory is fuzzy now, the only driving consequence I can recall was
when a buzzing friend got a ticket for driving too slowly on a major
highway.

But aside from suspecting a driver doing 40 km/h in a 110-km/h speed zone of
being stoned, police will only have the powers of observation to back up
their conviction with a charge.

Glassy eyes and a giddy attitude -- the sort of symptoms you might display
driving home after a gruelling week on a Friday evening -- will be the only
signs of impairment they can introduce in court.

Granted, there's a budget boost to help them acquire enhanced detection
techniques.

But neither Ontario nor Quebec, which have provincial police forces, will
qualify for a penny of the RCMP's $11-million-per-year increase.

And, finally, on the dope delusion front, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon
insists his legislation will pass Parliament by year end.

But with the Canadian Alliance vowing obstruction and a couple dozen Liberal
MPs opposed to the amendment, there's reason to believe the bill will die
with the Jean Chretien era.

Add it all up and you've got a government showing signs of diminished will
power, delusions, memory loss and paranoia.

Those symptoms suggest a clear-as-grass answer to the nagging question about
the influences behind this strange legislation: What where those guys
smoking?

Marijuana and the Law

- - Marijuana offences account for three in four of the nearly 92,000 drug
offences in Canada in 2001.

- - More than two-thirds (70%) of cannabis offences were for possession.

- - Over the past decade, marijuana offence rates have nearly doubled (91%),
but the rates for cocaine (-32%) and heroin

(-36%) are down by about one-third.

- - As of December 2002, Health Canada had issued 477 authorizations to
possess cannabis for medical purposes.

- - Marijuana possession is legal in the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. It is
decriminalized in Australia and non-prosecuted in Germany and Switzerland.

Source: Statistics Canada; Health Canada, Herald Archives