NATIONAL DRUG POLICY ON CANADA'S MOST WANTED LIST

The Supreme Court of Canada may be charged with the responsibility of
interpreting the country's laws -- but rarely do its legal minds wag a
scolding finger at those who make them.

If anything, the country's highest court has been slammed for offering
its own judicial spin on specific laws that govern Canadians rather than
forcing our elected representatives to enunciate what they meant.

But that changed last week when Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin took
the unusual position of closing the door on the federal government's
argument that smoking marijuana is so harmful to users and society that
it warrants criminalization.

Why, the court demanded to know, would Justice Department lawyers
argue in court that pot smokers should be considered criminals because
they cause driving accidents and suffer from cancer, psychiatric
problems and addiction when their boss, Justice Minister Martin
Cauchon has indicated he plans to proceed with legislative changes to
decriminalize the substance?

Indeed, the court's question raises another contradiction that
warrants our attention. If criminalization of weed is predicated on
evidence that it can cause car crashes, cancer and head trips, imagine how
many other discouragingly bad, but legal, habits fit the bill.

Fortunately, most indulgences, if used in moderation, don't wreak such
damage. Fortunately, too, we have a much better understanding of the
ups and downs of marijuana use now than in 1923 when cannabis --
although not a narcotic -- first made the outlaw list in the then
Opium and Narcotic Drug Act.

Since then, there have been many committees and numerous reports on
drugs, including the LeDain Commission's 1972 finding that the harm of
exposing Canadians to criminal sanctions -- jail and the lifelong
stigma of a criminal record -- outweighed pot's potential for harm.

What it tells us is that given Parliament's penchant for being
all-over-the-map on such crucial issues, our elected officials need to
conduct a fact-finding mission with experts as well as Canadians. One
that will result in a long over-due progressive drug policy that will
determine how best to handle the use and abuse of this and many other drugs.