BILL WOULD UNFAIRLY TILT SCALES OF JUSTICE

It's no secret that drug production - most often marijuana grow-ops or
meth labs - are a major source of income for the criminal element of
our society.

In order to keep up the appearance of being tough on crime, the
federal Conservatives are pushing through a bill that would apply
stiff mandatory sentences to anyone involved in any scale of grow-op,
from a few plants in the basement to major operations involving
hundreds of plants.

Nobody wants a marijuana grow-op in their neighbourhood. Often set up
in rented homes, they're messy and destructive to the building they're
set up in. It's not uncommon for the substandard wiring used to
transfer power to those powerful grow lights to cause fires.

Meth labs can be even more destructive. It's no wonder then that the
federal conservatives are trying to push through Bill C-15, which
would establish mandatory penalties for serious drug crimes. After
all, it looks good on any government's resume that they helped in the
war on drugs.

But the Conservatives are crying foul after the Liberal-dominated
senate amended C-15, removing some of the mandatory sentencing
provisions. In particular, they removed the mandatory penalty
targeting drug producers caught with between five and 200 marijuana
plants.

South of the border, many states have tried mandatory penalties. The
penalties haven't acted as a deterrent and as a result the U.S. now
has one of the largest prison populations in the world.

Were C-15 to pass unaltered, as the Conservatives insist it must, it
would put someone growing five plants for their personal use on a par
with a full-scale grow-op run by organized crime. Yes, both are
illegal, but there is a vast difference in both the effect and the
scale of the crimes.

And that's what judges are for; to evaluate all the circumstances of a
case and render a sentence appropriate to the crime. Imposing
mandatory sentences for minor crimes has only been proven to be good
for one thing - filling up jails.