IT'S TIME TO DECLARE PEACE

It seems we can't turn on our TV sets or open our newspapers in British
Columbia without being subjected to a bombardment of media coverage of
police raids on marijuana-growing operations. We read strong statements from
police all over the lower mainland about "cleaning out these operations."
Recently, a B.C. judge handed down a stiff sentence as a "deterrent" in one
of these cases. Predictably, The Vancouver Sun called this "the right thing
to do." Clearly, the provincial establishment is trying to pull together on
this get-tough stance on marijuana.

But what do they think this hard line will accomplish, and how far would
they like it to go? In the United States, the use of what amounts to
paramilitary police squads and mass incarceration programs with mandatory
life sentences has already been tried. In the past 20 years, Washington's
"war on drugs" has cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
It has brought social disaster to hundreds of thousands of families, clogged
courts and prisons, bankrolled organized crime by inflating drug prices, and
caused widespread corruption among police departments. Yet it has not
resulted in any decrease in the availability of drugs.

So, given this example, why are our media not asking the get-tough advocates
in Canada what they think their proposals would actually achieve?

And why haven't the media given much serious consideration to what it is
these police raids are trying to wipe out? Marijuana is one of the most
intensively researched drugs in history. That research started in the 19th
century with the British Commission on Indian Hemp, and has continued in
Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, the United States, Australia, the
Netherlands, Britain and Canada. All the major studies have concluded that,
for most people, marijuana is relatively safe, non-addictive and not a
gateway to more serious drug use. Indeed, we are now recognizing several
beneficial medical effects from its reasonable use.

So why are we continuing to criminalize tens of thousands of our citizens
every year for using this generally safe, pleasant and beneficial plant?
Well, here is the bottom line, and it is something that the media don't have
the guts to say. The laws on marijuana are simply wrong. Wrong because they
are not based on scientific research or any kind of social reality. Instead,
we Canadians are being directed by the socially disastrous ideology of the
American war on drugs.

If we adopted an intelligent, effective and socially realistic approach to
drug control, we would have to be willing to resist the political pressures
that would be brought to bear on Canada by the war-on-drugs interests in the
United States. The war on drugs is not only unjust and uneconomic, it is
unwinnable. The Americans have proved that. Arresting, fining and
imprisoning thousands of Canadians to please the Americans by going along
with their inhuman, corrupt and socially bankrupt fantasy is not a good
idea.

So let's start asking our guardians of freedom in the media to stop going
along for the ride on this issue. It's time they found the courage to ask
our politicians intelligent and honest questions about the future of the war
on drugs. It's time our politicians found the courage to give us honest
intelligent answers.