POSSESSION LAW MUST GO

It's not often we hear a judge calling a prosecution under the Criminal
Code "oppressive and vexatious," but that's what a provincial court judge
in Dartmouth, N.S., said in staying charges against a woman for possessing
a small amount of marijuana.

Other lower courts in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, have come to the
same conclusion, and, although their decisions are not binding on other
provincial court judges in these provinces, or anywhere else in Canada, the
conclusion is unmistakable: Until Parliament re-writes the law on simple
possession or removes it from the Criminal Code entirely, charges brought
by the Crown aren't likely to result in a conviction anywhere in the country.

Back in 2000, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled the drug law violated the
constitutional rights of a man who needed pot for medical reasons. The
court gave Parliament a year to fix the problem.

And, although Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said he intends to bring
in a law to decriminalize simple possession of pot, the government hasn't
produced the required legislation. Its absurd gun registration campaign is
obviously a higher priority.

What all this means, is that the courts feel there's no law against simple
possession any more. Yet the offence is still on the books so police forces
across the land continue to arrest people for it, and in some cases Crown
prosecutors are laying charges against those arrested.

This is an absurd, and expensive waste of time. Cauchon should stop puffing
gingerly at this issue, and inhale.