READER SAYS ANTI-DRUG FLYERS MISSING THE MARK

THE EDITOR:

Dear Dr. Lunney:

I am surprised that you would allow your image and reputation to ride
on the anti-drug flyer that arrived at my home today. I had thought
better of you, particularly in light of your recent stand on Bill C-51.

Have you seen the recently released 2007 crime statistics? Those data
confirm that your government's war on drugs is, for the most part, a
criminal law catchment and control device for cannabis users in this
country.

In its July 17, 2008 report in The Daily, Statistics Canada wrote:
"Drug offences were among the few police-reported crimes to increase
in 2007. The rate of drug offences rose 4% last year, driven by an
increase in cannabis possession offences, which accounted for about
half of all drug offences."

I was Special Assistant and Editor of the Le Dain Commission in the
early 1970s. One of the appendices of the Commission's Final Report
that I drafted contained data on convictions and sentences for drug
offences.

Although publication of those informative data was discontinued in the
mid-70s, I've been collecting Stats Can's annual report of the number
of persons charged with cannabis offences every year since.

From 1969 to 2007 police in Canada reported 972,401 persons charged
with possession of cannabis.

(Those charges were only reported if cannabis possession was the most
serious offence involved in a given incident.) They were persons
formally charged with possession -- not importing, cultivating or
trafficking -- but simple possession of cannabis. I have no doubt that
your party's fervent condemnation of marijuana in radio and TV ads
and, by implication, in this latest anti-drug flyer will push that
figure to 1,000,000 this year.

Ever since the Le Dain Commission's Cannabis Report in 1972, federal
governments (Liberal and Conservative) have considered
"decriminalizing" cannabis possession.

By that they have meant an approach that avoids a criminal record for
persons charged with possession.

For example, the 1972 discharge provisions of the Criminal Code were,
according to then Health Minister John Munro, "a means whereby the
courts could avoid imposing a criminal record on persons charged with
cannabis possession." Contrary to popular belief, the discharge
provisions never avoided a criminal record for any offence; and
successive governments to this day have allowed this massive
criminalization of young Canadians to continue unabated.

Everyone knows there is nothing more damning or condemning for a young
person than to start out in life with a criminal record.

Your government could win half the war on drugs by simply dealing with
this gross injustice once and for all. Until then, all its ranting
against "junkies and addicts" will be seen for what it is: a cover for
a mean-spirited political attack on the welfare of young Canadians.

It's hard to believe that you, a medical healer, would knowingly
endorse such a policy. I hope you will let us know that that isn't
so.

MIKE BRYAN

Port Alberni