GET-TOUGH LAWS WON'T SNUFF OUT MARIJUANA USE

A few years ago, I popped into an Amsterdam coffee shop and asked the
dreadlocked blond girl behind the counter to sell me a gram of its
weakest marijuana.

I can't handle B. C. bud because too much of it is what they call
wheelchair weed.

They don't seem to have any mild marijuana in Amsterdam, either, and
one toke left me in a state of profound angst. I bought a ticket for a
canal boat tour of the city in a state of medium paranoia, and spent a
deranged hour gaping at the beautiful architecture and trying to
control my racing mind.

Drugs, including marijuana, pose real risks, and I do not recommend
them, but many Canadians indulge.

According to the 2011 United Nations World Drug Report, 12.6 per cent
of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 had a toke in 2009,
including me.

That's one of the highest rates in the world, a tribute to the
entrepreneurial farmers who have made B.C. bud a global brand.

Only 5.4 per cent of the Dutch smoke weed, even though anyone who
wants to do so can pick up a rolled blunt on their way to the Gouda
shop.

The evidence is clear: laws don't stop marijuana use. Unless you want
to turn Canada into a North Korean-style police state, the government
can't stop people from smoking weed.

This week, the Conservatives introduced an omnibus crime bill that
will impose mandatory minimum sentences of six months in prison for
anyone possessing six to 200 plants for the purpose of
trafficking.

To make the charge stick, prosecutors will have to show the pot was
not for personal use, and show the judge plastic baggies, digital
scales, stacks of cash or log books.

Pot growers will no doubt learn to keep those things far from their
grow-ops -- unless they get high and forget.

Nobody thinks this law will reduce the amount of marijuana used. This
will cost taxpayers a lot of money and do nothing to make the streets
safer.

When journalists ask Justice Minister Rob Nicholson how much it will
cost to do all this, he delivers his tough-on-crime talking points and
declines to cough up numbers, but last year when the government was
facing contempt of Parliament proceedings, it introduced some
estimates at the Commons Finance committee, showing they expect the
bill will cost $67 million over five years. That's likely on the low
side. The Opposition accused the Tories of fudging the numbers, and
according to the parliamentary budget officer, the government didn't
provide enough details to show the estimates are reasonable.

Those are just the federal costs. It likely will cost the provinces
more.

Under the current law, only about 10-20 per cent of pot growers get
sentenced to any time behind bars, so judges likely will give the
majority of growers the minimum sentence: six months, which means
provincial rather than federal custody. And the court system, which is
also run by the provinces, will struggle under the load of new cases.

In 2003, there were 8,449 marijuana grow-op busts in Canada. According
to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada -- which handles drug cases
in all the provinces except Quebec and New Brunswick -- about 60 per
cent of its 32,000 cases last year concluded with a guilty plea, which
is almost always the result of a plea bargain. Only eight per cent of
cases ended with a conviction after trial.

With these mandatory minimums, nobody will plead guilty, because if
they do they are guaranteed to spend six months in the kind of place
where you can't relax in the shower. The crime gangs will spend more
on defence lawyers, and the system will get clogged.

In June, a Quebec judge ordered the release of 31 suspected Hells
Angels because there were not enough courtrooms and resources to
handle the trial. Last week, a B.C. judge dropped the case against a
guy who sold a quarter pound of cocaine to an undercover cop in 2007
because the case took too long.

Judges are releasing serious criminals because the system can't handle
the workload. The government is about to add thousands of small-time
weed farmers to the mix.

It's reefer madness.