THIS IS YOUR JUSTICE SYSTEM - ON DRUGS

In 1989, when I was a lawyer in Burnaby, I represented a pretty 17-year-old
McDonald's manager who'd been busted for simple possession of marijuana.

It seemed like a simple enough case: she'd been stopped at a police road
check, the cop smelled pot in the car, found a baggie of weed under the
seat, and then took her down to the station where he'd questioned her for
two hours before charging her with possession, and letting her go.

But when we got to the courthouse, I found out that things were far more
complicated than that.

The prosecutor had screwed up, and failed to send me lab results proving
that the stuff the cop had found was pot, so he'd flown in a government lab
tech - from Ottawa - to verify this at the trial.

Then I questioned the cop about why he'd detained my client for two hours
instead of just issuing her a summons and releasing her, and it became
apparent that he just wanted to "talk" to her - she was an attractive young
woman, after all.

This was insane.

A judge, a prosecutor, a lab tech, a court clerk, a cop, and me (thanks to
legal aid) were collectively getting paid several thousand dollars in
taxpayers' money for an afternoon's work, scaring the hell out of a
17-year-old girl. I told the judge that the evidence should be ignored
because allowing it would throw the justice system into disrepute.

The argument didn't fly: he found my client guilty, and put her on probation
for a year.

The judge wanted to teach my client a lesson about marijuana.

But I'd learned something, too: despite all the rhetoric we hear about how
organized crime profits from the illegal drug trade, we rarely hear about
how its righteous government-funded opponents benefit as well - and
especially from marijuana offences.

"Really, anyone who is connected with the justice system profits from
prohibition," says Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa lawyer and co-founder of the
Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. Lawyers often win federal drug
prosecution contracts based on their allegiance to the ruling federal party,
for example, and those contracts can be very lucrative.

As a June 9 Vancouver Sun article pointed out, four of the 10 biggest
federal prosecution contracts in Canada last year went to B.C. firms that
busted marijuana grow operations, including one in Nanaimo that billed
Ottawa more than $700,000 in legal fees. "That's a wonderful way of
recycling money to supporters of the government," Oscapella says.

Police officers also like marijuana because it's a "useful" offence: if it's
tough to prove that a pimp is living off the avails of prostitution, the
cops can always charge him for the joints they found in his pocket. It's an
easier conviction, and that keeps the force looking good.

"Cannabis statistics are easy statistics to get," says Oscapella. "There are
more cannabis users than heroin or cocaine users, and they're not violent
people generally.

Cannabis is bulky, it smells, and it's not as easily hidden as other drugs.

You can get a lot of heroin inside a very small package.

Cannabis is an easier day's work for the police."

This - and the ever-growing popularity of marijuana itself - might explain
why the numbers of cannabis arrests are increasing. According to Statistics
Canada, the rates for virtually every category of crime (violent, youth,
property) declined in 1999 - but the number of arrests for growing or
possessing pot went up 16 percent nationwide. And things are no wiser out
west: 251 people in the city of Victoria got busted for simple possession of
cannabis in 1999, nearly double the number (135) that got nabbed five years
earlier.

Victoria chief of police Paul Battershill says he doesn't really know why
Victoria has such numbers, since he arrived on the job in the middle of
1999. However, he generally agrees with an April statement made by the
Canadian Association of Police Chiefs calling for decriminalization of
simple possession of marijuana if more prevention and drug treatment
programs are created.

Battershill says he doesn't favour widespread legalization because drugs
like cocaine turn users paranoid and violent, and the long-term effects of
today's high-potency marijuana are still uncertain. "But I think there needs
to be a public debate about it. I think that there are certain roles where
the police need to respect that their job is to enforce the laws, and not
necessarily participate in making them."

That national discussion is coming.

In July, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the prohibition against the
possession of marijuana would be "of no force and effect" within one year if
parliament did not redraft the law. Last month Canadian Alliance leader
Stockwell Day called for a debate on the legalization of street drugs in
Parliament, and on October 16 hearings will begin before a special Senate
committee to reassess Canada's drug laws.

Some wonder whether all this debate will really change anything, because -
as a comprehensive series of articles in the Ottawa Citizen, and numerous
politicians, have pointed out - the United States threatens to bring
economic sanctions against any nation that fails to cooperate with its
prosecution of the global drug war. In March of this year, the U.S. State
Department chastised Canadian courts for being reluctant to impose tough
prison sentences on drug offenders, and many suspect the Yanks would turn on
the economic heat if there was any serious talk of legalization in this
country. (Then again, the U.S. will hardly have to worry if all our
politicians are like B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh - who once said when he was
attorney general of B.C. that he was opposed to marijuana legalization
because when he was a child he'd seen cows eat it and go "crazy".)

The astute political move for the feds, then, might be to claim that they
want to proceed with more progressive drug laws, but that the U.S. won't let
them. Only that excuse might let them off the hook, because according to a
May 15 National Post poll, 65 percent of Canadians favour decriminalization
of marijuana.

Enforcing a law that two-thirds of the public thinks is stupid only
encourages greater disrespect for the law generally.

If the marijuana laws - and the practices of the people who needlessly
enforce them - don't change, they shouldn't be surprised if the reputation
of our entire legal system falls into further disrepute.