WILL CANADA GO TO POT?

Debate On De-Criminalizing Marijuana Gathers Steam

When Gerard was kicked off a Montreal bus crossing the border to New York
en route to a hockey game, little did he know he'd be barred from the
United States.

"Have you ever been arrested?" he recalls the border guard asking him.

"Well, yes, I have," replied Gerard, referring to an old
cannabis-possession charge he thought was no longer on the books, thanks to
a pardon he obtained from the federal government after his conviction.

"It was a suspended sentence. No criminal record, just, 'Be a good boy.'
Well, somehow they (the American authorities) dug it up in their computer,"
the 50-year-old broadcast executive, who asked that his name not be
published, said in an interview.

It was the summer of 1986. Gerard was spotted by police puffing on a joint
with friends in a car, parked in an alley near a Montreal night club. A
police search turned up less than half a gram of hash in his pocket.

Gerard was charged with possession (hashish is a cannabis derivative),
convicted, then later pardoned.

But the U.S. border guard wasn't impressed.

"They don't care. To them what I had done was a federal offence," said
Gerard, who wasn't allowed back on the bus.

Worse, he was barred indefinitely from re-entering the U.S., where he has a
summer cottage.

"I got across the border 30 to 40 times a year and nothing ever happened
until one day (when asked about his past conviction)," said Gerard, who
then applied for a waiver from U.S. immigration services.

Then came a six-month quest for the waiver's dozen documents, from
citizenship, employment and arrest records, to a new set of fingerprints
and police photographs.

"It was unbelievable," he said. Even after he got the waiver - renewable
annually for $150 U.S. - he still endured up to hour-long delays filling
forms each time he crossed.

Gerard found out the hard way that a possession charge can complicate your
life.

Over the past 35 years, an estimated 600,000 Canadians have been charged
and convicted for possession of marijuana. Arrests soared by 16 per cent to
39,541 in 1999, Statistics Canada figures indicate. Of these arrests,
nearly half went nowhere, but a total of 21,126 people were convicted.
About 13 per cent ended up with prison sentences.

But Canadians continue to indulge in marijuana, despite threats of arrest,
jail time, criminal records and problems getting jobs or crossing the
border. Studies indicate more than a quarter of adults have tried marijuana
in their lifetime and 7 per cent of Canadians over the age of 15 are
current users.

The reality, said Richard Garlick of the Canadian Centre on Substance
Abuse, is that most people who smoke dope don't get caught. It's a law
that's applied in a discretionary way, he explained.

"The deterrent effect (of the law) is extremely negligible," said Garlick,
whose national drug education and prevention organization endorses
decriminalization (penalties similar to parking tickets) rather than
criminal records for marijuana users.

"We're proposing it be taken out of the Criminal Code," Garlick said, like
in Holland where marijuana remains illegal but is tolerated.

"We're not suggesting cafes where you can smoke or buy marijuana but a
reduction of its punitive nature. The law is too harsh. It's like hitting a
flea with a sledgehammer," Garlick said.

While fingerprinting is no longer mandatory for cannabis users found with
less than 30 grams, simple possession of that amount could net a maximum of
six months in prison or $1,000 fine, or both. For a subsequent offence,
that could increase to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. Most people
charged with possession get fined $200 and no jail time.

"But a cop can also walk by a group of kids smoking, smell pot, and keep
walking or perhaps confiscate the bag. The kids know that," Garlick said.
"What's clear is that the status quo isn't working to anyone's benefit."

The pot debate has dragged on for nearly 30 years now, ever since the
LeDain commission recommended dropping criminal sanctions for marijuana users.

Since then, the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Bar Association,
the Canadian Council of Churches, Association of Police Chiefs, the RCMP
and several political leaders have called for decriminalization, as
distinct from legalization.

The growing movement to drop pot from the criminal-justice system
culminated last year with a Senate committee, charged with a two-year
examination of Canada's drug laws.

Tom Naylor, professor of economics at McGill University and expert on the
underground economy, including drug trafficking, called the shift "a
copout. All they are going to do is bring the law into line with actual
reality."

De-criminalization rather than legalization simply means the status quo, he
said. "Because you don't shove people in jail - or very rarely - for
smoking now. Everybody knows the law is stupid."

Canada's police are split on the issue.

Last week, the Canadian Police Association, representing rank and file
police officers, told the Senate committee that marijuana was "a gateway"
to harder drugs and must remain a criminal offence. But its views are at
odds with the association representing police chiefs and the RCMP, which
have endorsed decriminalization.

Opponents of more liberal drug laws say smoking marijuana damages the
lungs, causes memory loss, and leads to poor performance at school and
work. But there's a dispute over the health risks; the Canadian Medical
Association said when marijuana is used in moderation, there are "minimal"
negative risks.

Meanwhile, the foot soldiers in the drug war march on.

Cannabis offences accounted for three-quarters of all drug-related
incidents in 1999 (66 per cent were for possession, 17 per cent for
trafficking, 15 per cent for cultivation and 2 per cent for importing).
After a 10-year decline, marijuana offences increased by 34 per cent in the
1990s while cocaine and heroine offences dropped by 36 and 25 per cent,
respectively.

"One of the reason some police are adamantly opposed to the
decriminalization of marijuana is because it would eliminate most of this
so-called drug problem," Naylor said. "If you take away the cannabis users
from the problem drug users, the numbers become quite minuscule."

The current law is a result of ignorance, Naylor said. "Cannabis abusers
are much less of threat to society than alcoholics. When was the last time
you saw a male cannabis abuser beating up his wife? He probably wants to
put on The Grateful Dead and boogie to it."

A century ago, marijuana was a common folk remedy.

But when the pendulum swung suddenly during Prohibition, the popular
cure-all plant became an evil weed, capable of inducing crime and depravity.

The pressure to criminalize marijuana began in the U.S., fed by fervent
anti-pot crusader Harry Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The
social climate bred the now classic scare film Reefer Madness, which linked
pot to violence and insanity.

What happened in Canada?

"Emily Murphy," said lawyer Eugene Oscapella, co-founder of the Canadian
Foundation for Drug Policy, referring to the women's-rights pioneer who
published a series of articles vilifying marijuana in Maclean's magazine.

"Marijuana users are good-for-nothing lazy fellows who live by begging or
stealing. They pester the relations for money to buy the hashish, often
assaulting them when they refuse the demands," Murphy wrote in her book,
The Black Candle.

Murphy's "hysterical descriptions of cannabis," Oscapella said, influenced
Canadian lawmakers. "And that, as far as legal historians can figure out,
is how we got the cannabis act into our laws. The act was adopted without
parliamentary debate."

Canada banned cannabis in 1923. But there wasn't a single criminal
conviction for it until 1937, Oscapella said. "Basically, it was a solution
without a problem."

Today, the hotly contested debate has nearly half of Canadians in favour of
decriminalization, according to a national survey conducted by University
of Lethbridge sociologist Reg Bibby.

"A growing number of Canadians of all ages simply do not see marijuana in
negative terms, viewing it probably as less harmful that cigarettes and
definitely less harmful than alcohol," Bibby says.

"People respond to a law when they feel a social obligation," explained
Garlick of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, which found 99 per cent
of cannabis users go back to smoking within a year of getting fined or
jailed. "If they enjoy doing it, they're going to continue doing it."

Health Canada is about to approve studies aimed at finding out whether the
anecdotal evidence collected for centuries on the medicinal value of
marijuana has any basis in science.

Montrealer Claude Messier, a muscular dystrophy patient who lives with
constant pain, needs no convincing. It's the only substance that offers
relief from severe muscle cramping, said Messier, one of 251 Canadians with
an exemption from Health Canada to smoke pot for medical purposes.

A member of the Montreal Compassion Club, which provides him with pot on
compassionate grounds, Messier recently made a passionate plea for
government funds to pay for medical marijuana. It isn't covered by medicare.

Decriminalization couldn't come fast enough for the the Rachel St. club,
whose legal status is in limbo. Last February, two volunteers were arrested
on charges of possession and drug trafficking. Marijuana Party leaders Marc
St-Maurice and Alexandre Neron are to go on trial in September.

Justice Minister Anne McLelland has said she has no plans to drop
possession from the Criminal Code. And St-Maurice is not holding out any
hope the committee examining decriminalization will have an impact on his
case. Besides, the Marijuana Party is calling for outright legalization,
not just baby steps toward decriminalization, he said.

"We can't put our guard down. We've heard this before in the 1970s and
1980s," said Larry Duprey, 57, who opened Montreal's first hemp store in
1970 on Prince Arthur St. and is now running another, Chanvre en Ville, on
Park Ave.

"If a policeman is having a bad day, he can stick you with a record that
can harm you for the rest of your life. People tell us, 'Nobody bothers you
any more.' Well, that's a discretionary policy."