DRUG LAW IS 'DUMB ON CRIME'

I support much of the Harper government's legislative agenda, but
they're spectacularly, tragically wrong in their dogged determination
to impose harsher marijuana laws.

A case in point is their Bill S-10, currently before the Senate, which
among other things proposes a mandatory six-month sentence for
possessing as few as six marijuana plants. Passing such a law would be
invidiously unjust and counter-productive, resulting in prison
sentences and criminal records for substantially greater numbers of
people, most of them young, for engaging in a harmless activity that
millions of Canadians believe should not be criminal at all.

It's notable that Proposition 19 on California's mid-term election
ballot last November would've legalized cultivation of up to 25 square
feet (2.3 square metres) of the herb per household for personal use
had it passed. That would accommodate a lot more than six plants.
Regrettably, Proposition 19 was narrowly defeated (53.8 per cent
opposed), but 46.2 per cent of Californians voted "Yes." It's not
difficult to discern which side has momentum on this issue.

Stephen Harper's Tories are bucking a current that will ultimately
prevail. I confidently anticipate that marijuana legislation reforms
like Proposition 19 will eventually pass, and not just in California.
In the meantime, misguided legislative zealotry like the Tories' Bill
S-10, which would muddy the distinction between sophisticated grow-ops
and kids growing a few marijuana plants, has real potential to ruin
lives as well as collaterally punishing taxpayers who'll have to fund
its unnecessary and foolish excesses.

The Conservatives' determination to send more Canadians to jail for
marijuana-related offences is one issue where the accusation that
they're prone to aping U.S. policy actually holds some water.

Baroness Vivien Stern, one of the world's leading authorities on
criminal justice and a Senior Research Fellow at the International
Centre for Prison Studies at King's College, London, once observed
that "The U.S. pursues the war on drugs with an ignorant fanaticism."
It's fanaticism evidently shared by the Harper government and many of
its supporters, alas. As Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff observed
last week, the Tories' proposed six plants and you go to jail
legislation "isn't tough on crime, it's dumb on crime."

According to a December 2008 U.S. Department of Justice Statistics
report, more than 600,000 people are in U.S. prisons on drug offenses,
with 30 to 40 per cent of all current prison admissions involving
crimes with no direct or obvious victim other than the perpetrator,
and 31 per cent (nearly a third) of admissions resulting from
non-violent drug offenses. That sorry state of affairs is a real crime
against common sense and reason.

If passed into law, the Conservatives' Bill S-10 would result in
imprisonment of thousands of Canadians for victimless crimes, sending
people to jail for growing six marijuana plants, making hashish (or
baked goods containing cannabis), plus a host of even harsher
mandatory sentences for other cannabis-related offences, at a cost of
millions of dollars.

According to a 2007 Department of Justice report, marijuana arrests
accounted for 47.4 per cent of U.S. drug abuse arrests, which
calculates to about 872,720 persons arrested for marijuana offenses,
89 per cent of which were for simple possession. Arrests for marijuana
offenses can have dire consequences for young people. For example, in
the U.S., a drug conviction permanently disqualifies students from
receiving Federal Student Loans. Do we really want to import that sort
of perverse and destructive idiocy to Canada?

For some perspective, maximum sentences for rape in Canada are 10
years for non-violent offenses and 14 years for violent rape. The
average sentence for rape in Canada is reportedly 3.85 years. The
current maximum sentence in Canada for marijuana possession is five
years for over one ounce; six months for less than one ounce, with the
maximum for cultivation seven years. Bill S-10 would double the latter
to 14 years (the same maximum sentence as for violent rape).

Does the Harper government really, seriously believe that growing
marijuana, in whatever volume, is as harmful to society as violent
rape? Does that make any rational sense?

Not even close, IMHO.

So what about the negative consequences of marijuana?

I'm not a marijuana user, but I'm increasingly convinced that there
actually are essentially no negative consequences of marijuana use for
society other than the manifold distempers imposed by prohibition itself.

Marijuana possession, cultivation and distribution are victimless, and
by any rational measure not real crimes at all. Any violence and/or
organized crime associations with marijuana derive directly from
prohibition, are no way initiated by the plant, and could be
substantially reduced by decriminalization and virtually eliminated by
legalization.

Happily, although the new Tory Senate majority may result in passage
of Bill S-10, Mr. Ignatieff is withdrawing his party's support of the
bill's Parliamentary version (C-15), which would torpedo its enactment
into law anytime soon.

Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotia based freelance writer and editor.