MARIJUANA RULING CHANGES `WAR'

TOBACCO, AN addictive, health-harming, perfectly legal and highly taxable
substance, makes an interesting contrast with marijuana, another cash crop
but illegal and untaxed in all its forms, from trafficking across the border
to possession of a few grams.

If these leafy products were swapped, in terms of the application of the
law, it would make more sense, at least as "recreational" drugs of wide
choice. But common sense in dealing, so to speak, with a mild euphoric such
as marijuana, and with those "hard" drugs linked to serious crime, violence
and bodily risk, has been in short supply since the U.S. declared a war on
drugs that itself became a growth industry.

Public debate on the role of marijuana as an "entry point" to such
undesirable habits as cocaine and heroin, and on the ill-effects of heavy
use of pot, has a parallel argument in the use and abuse of alcohol. This
product also requires using with discretion. But as police and social
agencies well know, it triggers severe social problems and illegal acts when
abused.

In that context, smoking marijuana is low on the list of social evils, and
in some countries is ignored as a criminal offence, or is legal within what
amounts to minor possession. Addictions, in fact, are seen as medical rather
than criminal problems.

CANADA'S unequal sharing of the continent with the U.S. makes such
decriminalization less feasible, assuming authorities want to concentrate
more time, effort and money on major marijuana and hard-drug profiteers such
as motorcycle hoodlums and ethnic gangs.

The spark for change may have been given by the Ontario appeal court ruling
in a medical-use case that the marijuana possession law is unconstitutional.
This is because pot seems to be a useful medicine in certain chronic
illnesses. More broadly, the decision could dump the law nationally.

Support for de facto decriminalization of minor possession (under five
grams) comes from the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs. Board member
Edgar MacLeod, the Cape Breton regional police chief, says there are social
consequences to using marijuana but they should not include people getting a
lifetime criminal record in minor cases, nor distract the police and the
courts from chasing criminals.

This is not legalization. It is, however, a more sensible approach than the
war-on-all-fronts that typifies today's law enforcement. A law on possession
that is so widely broken and so lacking in endorsement from many senior
police officers is in serious need of review, starting about now.