Criminology expert explains drug law history

The professor from Simon Fraser University said prohibition of marijuana
was quietly enacted without informed debate.

By Eric Bender
Free Press Reporter

Canada's drug law regarding marijuana was born out of a racial
backlash, is unsupported by research and was enacted without debate, a
Simon Fraser University criminology professor said in a London court
Monday.

Drug prohibition, a 20thcentury phenomenon, began in Canada in 1908
when the smoking of opium was criminalized in response to prejudice
against the Chinese and Japanese who were willing to work cheaper than
others at the time, Neil Boyd told Ontario court, general division
judge John McCart.

Boyd said cannabis was added to the schedule of banned substances in
1923 almost unnoticed and with no informed debate.

Testifying for the defence in the trial of London hemp store
proprietor Chris Clay, who is charged with possession and trafficking
cannabis seeds and plant seedlings, Boyd said cannabis was probably
added because Canada's first woman judge, Emily Murphy, wrote in a
1922 book, The Black Candle, that persons using marijuana "lose all
sense of moral responsibility" and become "raving maniacs."

CHALLENGE MOUNTED: Clay and store employee Jordan Prentice, who is
also charged, have pleaded not guilty to all charges and have mounted
a constitutional challenge claiming the law is illconceived,
unreasonable and therefore an infringement of individual rights.

The defence, through witnesses, has attacked the severity of sentences
for simple possession and trafficking and the resulting criminal
convictions that cause individuals to lose employment, restrict border
crossings and assume a social stigma.

Boyd said an initial gettough policy when marijuana skyrocketed in
the 1960s was softened when it was found the jails couldn't hold all
those convicted. "Now a fine is typical," he said.

The professor recalled a program in London during the 1970s when he
was going to the University of Western Ontario called TIP Turn In a
Pusher that left bright young students tarred for life with
criminal records.

While the actual numbers of people being jailed for simple possession
dropped in the early 1980s, the rate actually increased. As of 1985,
he said, the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs decided to halt reporting of
cannabis possession offences citing budgetary constraints.

Boyd said he feels the bureau was "embarrassed by its own data" and
the federal Liberal government "doesn't want to start up a debate and
argue whether a jail sentence is appropriate for a cannabis
conviction."

Boyd said he favors government control of cannabis so that it can be
grown and distributed and taxed under regulation and carry educational
information as to its uses and dangers.

CHEAPEST INTOXICANT: He said a cannabis high is the cheapest and
safest intoxicant.

He calculated for the court that a person can achieve a cannabis kick
for $1.67. "It would cost a lot more than that to get high on
alcohol," he said.

Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School,
said there is no basis for excluding marijuana for medical use as it
essentially is in Canada and the U.S.

After studying the social and medical effects of marijuana since 1967,
Grinspoon said he has concluded it is the safest of all intoxicants
right down there with caffeine yet beneficial for alleviating pain
and achieving other medical relief.

OVERDOSE: He said it is impossible to overdose on marijuana, there
have been no deaths directly resulting from its intake, unlike the
several thousand people who die each year of gastric bleeding caused
by Aspirin.

"In the future, marijuana will be recognized as a remarkable
medicine," Grinspoon told the court.

He said marijuana is nonaddictive, does not induce psychiatric
disorder, does not lead to criminal activity or aggression, is not
significant in causing motor vehicle accidents, is not a stepping
stone to hard drugs and does not cause brain or organ damage.

He said cannabis should be controlled in the same way alcohol is
allowed into society.

The trial continues today.