IT'S AGREED: DECRIMINALIZE POT

The lobby to decriminalize marijuana continues to grow, with the Canadian
Medical Association now joining the push. The organization, which
represents more than 50,000 physicians, has strengthened the case
previously made by groups such as the federally funded Canadian Centre on
Substance Abuse, the Association of Canadian Police Chiefs and the Canadian
Bar Association. These organizations hardly constitute a hippy rabble.

What is it going to take for the federal government to abandon the obsolete
view that marijuana is a dangerous vice that merits the force of Criminal
Code sanction? The CMA notes that of the 66,500 drug offences in Canada in
1997, more than 70%, or 47,908, were cannabis-related. Of those, two-thirds
involved mere possession and the majority of those charged with offences
were young. About 2,000 Canadians go to jail annually for simple possession
of marijuana. It is these figures, and not the consumption of the
mood-altering substance, that constitute the real source of concern:
Enforcement of our marijuana laws necessitates a useless waste of public
funds and police resources.

The facts show that marijuana generally contributes to ruin of neither mind
nor body. As the British medical journal, The Lancet, argued in a 1998
editorial: "It would be reasonable to judge cannabis less of a threat to
health than alcohol or tobacco." Around the world, tobacco claims more than
three million lives every year. Alcohol claims another 750,000. Marijuana,
which is far less addictive than either -- to the extent it is addictive at
all -- is harmless by comparison. While smoking pot, like smoking tobacco,
harms the lungs and throat, there is not a single confirmed published case
of a human death arising from cannabis poisoning anywhere.

Public opinion is also well ahead of the government on this issue. Polls
have shown that Canadians overwhelmingly support decriminalization, with
one survey in 1990 finding that seven out of 10 Canadians felt marijuana
possession merited no more than a fine.

Canada has already made some progress in making marijuana available to
those who need it for medical reasons. But that is not enough. The federal
legislators should take the advice of their doctors and decriminalize
marijuana entirely.