SMOKING POT SHOULDN'T BE A CRIME

It's time to decriminalize marijuana

So Ontario Premier Mike Harris has never smoked marijuana. Blow me over with
a feather. This is the most shocking revelation since we found out U.S.
President Bill Clinton actually did have sex with that woman. If Harris
admitted smoking marijuana in response to journalists' questions, I'd credit
his spin doctors with a strategy to win him votes. If ever there was man who
looks like he never tried the evil weed, it is our premier.

You'd have to be pretty dogmatic to be a youth through the 1960s without
even taking a puff. But our Mike is of sterner stuff. Reality doesn't
interfere with his ideas. Zero tolerance, he cries. Clamp down hard right at
the beginning. Throw 'em in jail. That'll stop 'em.

Even the Association of Canadian Police Chiefs, never known to be soft on
crime, think simple possession of marijuana should be decriminalized. The
association favours fines for those convicted of simple marijuana
possession. That's more like a speeding ticket than a break and enter. The
police chiefs would like to be able to concentrate their resources on
investigating more serious crime.

Even the right-wing Fraser Institute, usually Harris's intellectual
inspiration, thinks it is foolish to crowd the courts with people who are
indulging in a drug that has never been proven dangerous and that most agree
is less harmful than either cigarettes or alcohol.

But not our Mike.

Law and order types should be in favour of the decriminalization of pot.
When hundreds of thousands of Canadians break a law just for smoking pot, it
casts the administration of justice in a poor light. Of course, most of them
don't get caught. It's kids who get caught, young males who the police are
probably rousting for something else. But they get caught with dope and get
a criminal record for doing the same thing many adults do.

What's really crazy is that cannabis arrests have been growing. In 1997,
almost 50,000 people were charged with marijuana offences, up 34 per cent
since 1991. More than seven out of 10 drug offences were for marijuana and
two-thirds of them were for simple possession, according to a recent
Statistics Canada report. Eighty-six per cent of those arrested for
marijuana were under 25. Nine out of 10 offenders were male. Yet police
claim marijuana arrests are a low priority.

Putting people through criminal court for pot is just plain stupid. It clogs
up the courts. It costs a lot of money. It uses up valuable police time. It
ruins people's lives. For what reason? In 1971, the LeDain Commission
recommended the decriminalization of marijuana. No one has come up with a
cogent argument against it since.

In 1994, during the first season of my former television show, Face Off, the
legalization of marijuana was debated. There was plenty of mail in response
and all of it, every last piece, was in favour of the legalization of
marijuana. Right-wingers, left-wingers, middle of the roaders -- all
supported at least decriminalization.

I know it's not fair to vilify Harris on this. It is, after all, a federal
issue. The Chretien Liberals can't even bring themselves to support the
legalization of medical marijuana without stalling for a medical review. In
an October Angus Reid poll, a remarkable 83 per cent of those asked
supported the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. There is no
question marijuana is less lethal than hundreds of pharmaceutical drugs that
cause horrible side-effects. It also helps relieve suffering in everything
from multiple sclerosis to cancer. I have a friend with multiple sclerosis
who could not have survived the last 10 years with out the help of a joint.
It is absurd that seriously ill people can get prescriptions for addictive
drugs like morphine but have to risk arrest to get marijuana.

I would like to poll the Liberal caucus and ask how many of them have smoked
marijuana. Considering the sterling honesty of the Ontario party leaders, I
might even find out the truth. Does it matter, you ask. How many other
provisions of the Criminal Code have been broken by the leader of the
Ontario Liberal and NDP parties? The same question could be asked of the
federal Liberal caucus, at least among those under 55.

Somehow I doubt there are too many Mike Harrises out there.

Judy Rebick is host of CBC Newsworld's Straight From the Hip. Her column
appears Fridays.