TORY POT LAW IS TOO HARSH

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson accused the Liberals Thursday
as being "soft on crime" for refusing to support a bill, passed by
the Senate, that would throw growers of as few as six marijuana
plants for trafficking purposes in jail for six months. His
chest-thumping is unlikely to convince most Canadians that Michael
Ignatieff is running the country to ruin. Increasingly Canadians are
personally acquainted with weed.

Over the last 25 years, Canadians have grown used to the idea of pot
as a benign drug. Most either have smoked or personally know people
who smoke. Despite this, the Tories are going after pot as part of a
strategy unveiled in 2007 to cut illegal drug use in Canada through
prevention, treatment and punishment. The latter thrust is the
impetus for the government's attempts to introduce mandatory minimum
sentences to the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Many Canadians may be on side with minimum sentencing, which
effectively takes discretion out of the hands of judges, for the
targeting of pernicious drugs, growers and traffickers whose work
enrich the coffers of organized crime. Those organizations' tentacles
reach to marijuana grow-ops, but they are not the home-based potted
plants caught up in Mr. Nicholson's law.

The Harper government's bill, introduced in its third iteration by
the Senate, goes too far to go after two-bit growers or sellers of a
substance widely seen as the equivalent, in good and evil, of
alcohol. It was largely for that reason that not long ago Liberal
governments mused about decriminalizing weed.

The Senate bill is among various federal tougher sentencing reforms
that will dramatically hike prison costs -- Parliamentary Budget
Officer Kevin Page has estimated the elimination of credit for
pretrial detention alone can cost up to $10 billion over five years.

Mr. Ignatieff says he's joining the Bloc and NDP to defeat an overly
punitive law, that had been introduced twice before -- the Liberals
had amended an earlier version, to target larger growers, but it died
upon prorogation of Parliament.

Going after small-time growers puts Mr. Nicholson's government out of
sync with public sentiment. He would be hard-pressed to prove what
evil grows from a clutch of leafy greens in a neighbour's spare room.
The Harper government has made clear that decriminalization of pot is
nowhere near its to-do list, but it can easily bring some reason to
its drive for mandatory minimums by taking small growers out of its sights.