Marijuana Legalization Debated At Trial
By Jill Mahoney, The Globe & Mail

LONDON, Ont. – Legalizing marijuana is not the way to protect
smallscale users of the drug because police already have the discretion
not to lay charges, a court was told yesterday.

"The likelihood of incarceration for simple possession is receding
dramatically," federal prosecutor Kevin Wilson said.

In a trial that could throw Canada’s drug laws into serious question,
26yearold Chris Clay is charged with possession of, cultivating and
trafficking in cannabis. His home and his hemp store were raided in
1995 and 1996. Jordan Prentice, an employee of Mr. Clay, faces similar
charges.

Mr. Clay’s lawyer, Osgoode Hall law professor Alan Young, mounted a
constitutional challenge to the cannabis law in the threeweekold case.

Prof. Young argued that minor use of marijuana is not serious enough to
warrant its inclusion in the Narcotic Control Act and that people have
the right to make decisions with respect to their "bodily integrity."

Discussion in the case has focused on the degree to which marijuana use
is proved to be harmful. Both sides concluded that more and better
studies are needed to establish the drug’s effects.

Prof. Young argued that because of the lack of research showing that
marijuana is worse than recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco,
it is unfair to lay criminal charges against the drug’s users.
Marijuana use was outlawed in 1923.

A report in 1972 by the LeDain Commission into the nonmedical use of
drugs recommended that possession of marijuana not be a criminal
offence. The federal government did not act upon the commission’s
recommendation.

Mr. Wilson and his colleague, John Vaissi Nagy, argued that the court
would be overstepping its jurisdiction by ruling in favour of legal
marijuana.

The defence team of Prof. Young and Toronto lawyer Paul Burstein have
maintained that classifying marijuana as a narcotic drives smalltime
users, including those who take the drug for its medicinal effects, into
the black market, which ultimately leads to wasting public funds in
lawenforcement costs.

Also at issue is whether the plant material seized from Mr. Clay and Mr.
Prentice is marijuana or hemp – an industrial version of cannabis with a
lower level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive
ingredient in marijuana. Just last week, wearing hemp clothing and
writing on hemp paper was legalized for the first time since 1938. The
federal government is expected to legalize hemp growing soon.

"What an absurd result would be created by prosecuting [and]
incarcerating an individual who only dealt in a substance that could
produce rope [and] shirts," said Prof. Young, whose reduced fees are
partly being paid for by Mr. Clay’s sale of "victory bonds," $25
certificates redeemable for a quarter ounce of mariuana once the drug is
legalized.

Mr. Justice John McCart of the Ontario Court’s General Division
adjourned the case until June 24, when a date to deliver a final ruling
will likely be set. Mr. Clay said that if he loses and he has enough
money, he will appeal his case as far as the Supreme Court of Canada.