PONDERING POT PROHIBITION

Marc-Boris St-Maurice kicked off the Canadian 'Resolving Marijuana
Prohibition' tour with a panel discussion at the Ottawa Public Library
downtown on Jan. 26.

St-Maurice is the Canadian executive director of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a group formed
originally in the United States to decriminalize the usage of
marijuana. Guelph and Hamilton are the tour's next stops and
St-Maurice says he hopes they will be the first of many across the
country.

The group's philosophy of anti-prohibition stands on four pillars, which
St-Maurice
addresses in his video, Resolving Marijuana Prohibition: economic
development, health
and medicine, social justice and policy implementation.

The organization argues that legalizing marijuana would boost the
Canadian economy much like lifting the prohibition on alcohol boosted
the economy during the Great Depression. Furthermore, expenditures on
policing and judiciary needs would decrease.

Although this argument presents the economic benefits of lifting
prohibition, the four experts invited to sit on the panel at the
Ottawa forum were undecided on the total economic impact.

"[The sale of marijuana] will not be the same in a legal market," said
Line Beauchesne, a professor of criminology at the University of
Ottawa and member of the forum's panel.

St-Maurice also highlighted that the legalization of the drug would
greatly improve patients' access to marijuana for medical reasons.
Furthermore, he noted that a prohibition lift would end 100 years of
commissions with exactly that objective.

The drugs by themselves cannot be harmful, said Tara Lyons, executive
director of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) and
panel member.

"Not creating the space for people to talk about the realities of drug
use, that's what creates the harm," Lyons said.

Lyons also argues that the laws prohibiting marijuana in order to
"save kids" are often the same laws that harm them. According to
Lyons, 75 per cent of charges laid against youth aged 12-17 are
related to the use of marijuana. These charges then show up on
students' criminal records and since many homeowners are asking for
criminal record checks before renting their homes, it's hard for
students to find housing, Lyons said.

The legalization of marijuana is important to students because they
"use marijuana and experiment with it," said Tamara Kalnins, the
fourth-year Carleton student who runs the CSSDP Carleton chapter.

Kalnins said she believes that the end of prohibition will mean a
decrease in students' criminal records.

At the end of the tour, St-Maurice plans to create and introduce The
National Resolution for the Legalization of Marijuana, a proposal to
the government about why they should remove the prohibition. This
proposal should be ready by the fall, St-Maurice said.

Students interested in learning more about this cause can visit the
NORML Canada website at www.norml.ca , the CSSDP website at
www.canadiandrugpolicy.org