CRACK APPEARING IN CANADA'S WAR ON POT

The great marijuana debate gets a fresh kick-start this weekend with the
release of Ottawa's plans for regulating medicinal pot.

And the huffing and puffing won't stop there.

The presidents of Mexico and Uruguay are both talking about legalizing pot,
which is driving the White House crazy. The "War on Drugs" may be a
stupendous failure, but George W. Bush loves it anyway.

Undaunted, Uruguay's Jorge Ibanez wants the topic discussed at this month's
Summit of the Americas conference in Quebec City.

On another front, The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a
challenge to Ottawa's right to criminalize marijuana possession, launched
by two men from the Lower Mainland and another from Ontario.

Back in America, a miserable battle continues over the use of medicinal
marijuana. Some states including California, Oregon and Colorado have
passed laws allowing its use; the White House continues to try to stop it.

Mighty big addiction, that War on Drugs.

Canada, an obedient servant to the U.S., has gone along with this guff to
pacify southern graduates from the Reefer Madness school of quackery.

But Ottawa's trampling of rights to fuel the War on Drugs has not gone
unnoticed by the courts, and their rulings may well provide the jolt needed
to bring some sanity to the issue.

Health Canada was forced to introduce new medicinal pot regulations after
Ontario's Court of Appeal said the old rules forced the sick to choose
between "health and imprisonment."

Sick folks could get a permit from the minister of health to smoke
medicinal pot, but there was no legal supply. If you couldn't grow your
own, you had to break the law to get your medicine.

The new regulations are said to allow medicinal users to designate a legal
supplier, who in turn would be exempt from prosecution.

This is welcome news to John Conroy, the Abbotsford lawyer who'll be
arguing the Supreme Court challenge some time in the next year.

Asked if the relaxing of medicinal pot rules will make his case easier,
Conroy told me his first reaction would be "not necessarily.

"On the other hand, when we're in the Supreme Court of Canada, we could say
. . . if it's OK for medical purposes, why do you need to threaten
someone's liberty" by refusing ordinary people the right to indulge in an
essentially harmless activity.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case after courts of appeal in B.C.
and Ontario upheld the law against pot possession -- even though, as Conroy
notes, all the judges "accepted that the possession and use of marijuana
does not pose a significant, substantial, or serious risk to the public."

Conroy says this isn't a simple "pot case," but a Charter of Rights
challenge to the "constitutionality of this kind of prohibition . . .

"The question is what level of risk of harm has to exist before Parliament
can criminalize conduct . . .

"We're not saying they can't legislate on social policy issues," but it
shouldn't be easy to criminalize conduct on an "emotional basis" or popular
"whim."

Amen, I say.