POT OFTEN LESS TOXIC THAN FOOD, COURT TOLD

(Toronto) -- Pot is safer than many of the foods people eat, and it
shouldn't be a crime to use it, Ontario's top court was told yesterday.

"You can kill lab rats with sugar -- you can't kill them with
marijuana," lawyer Alan Young told the three-judge panel of the
Ontario Court of Appeal.

Young made the points during a constitutional challenge of Canada's
marijuana law on behalf of Chris Clay, who was convicted in London in
1997 of selling a cannabis plant to an undercover officer, and Terry
Parker, who suffers from epilepsy.

"Parliament does not have the constitutional authority to criminalize
relatively harmless conduct," Young said outside court.

"The British North America Act doesn't give them the power and the
Charter of Rights prevents them from acting in an arbitrary way."

Marijuana isn't highly addictive or toxic, isn't a "gateway" to using
harder drugs; it doesn't cause crime, violent behaviour or psychosis,
or cause people to lose their motivation -- that much the Crown
conceded in the lower court case, Young told the judges.

In fact, Crown and defence lawyers agreed at Clay's trial before
Justice John McCart of Ontario's Superior Court that occasional,
moderate use of the drug is harmless.

"And unless Parliament has a reasonable apprehension of harm, they
can't interfere in one's autonomous decision to use marijuana," Young
said.

Young said Canada's current pot law is antiquated -- its first
incarnation appeared in 1928 -- and was born, in the words of McCart,
"in an atmosphere of irrational fear."

Chronic dope smoking can lead to bronchitis, Young said, but only one
per cent of the drug's users smoke it heavily. The other 99 per cent
are therefore vulnerable to the stigma of criminal charges, Young
said, which has no social benefit.

He noted that by 1997, 600,000 Canadians had been saddled with
criminal records for marijuana-related offences.

Although McCart agreed pot wasn't particularly harmful, he ruled it
was up to Parliament to decriminalize the drug, not the courts.

Young said the government has been reluctant to act, despite promises
made after a Royal Commission on pot urged Ottawa to study the drug.

While Young said the government has done virtually nothing since then,
Health Minister Allan Rock announced researchers will go ahead with
clinical trials of medicinal marijuana.

Young wants the appeal court to strike down the possession offence,
eliminate imprisonment as a punishment or suspend the law.

There is also no proof that removing criminal sanctions encourages
use, he argued.

In Holland, only 5.4 per cent of Dutch teens use the drug even though
it has been decriminalized, he said. In Canada, about 22 per cent of
teens smoke pot.