IT'S NOT EASY GETTING TOUGH ON POT PRODUCERS

We've come close occasionally to letting people, without becoming
criminals, puff pot or whatever they do with it.

But what newscasters insist on calling "the Harper government" is
frogmarching us in so many ways back into the 20th century, when
community standards, supposedly, were higher and people, supposedly
again, were of sterner stuff.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is no more likely to allow the
"de-criminalization" of marijuana than he is to try to empty the prisons.

This probably upsets a lot of people more than it upsets me. The
Supreme Court of Canada recognized in 1990 that the criminal law may
be used "to express society's disapprobation" of behaviours. It was
talking, then, of soliciting for prostitution and, presumably, would
say the same about marijuana use today.

It's hard, though, to enforce laws which so many believe are out of
date and which take up so much police time that could be spent better
dealing with worse things.

It's reported that one-quarter of people between 15 and 24 have "used"
marijuana in the past year.

I know that some people use the stuff to ease pain, and that as a
prescribed substance it has fewer side effects than many other drugs.

I know, too, that most folks who use it do so to get high, spaced-out,
squiffy, or whatever the term is in that culture, and that as a
proscribed substance it's far less damaging than booze, which isn't.

Guidelines published last week in the Canadian Journal of Public
Health frankly accept that millions of Canadians use cannabis, which
the lead author insists "is not a benign drug."

So the guidelines say youngsters should wait until their brains have
developed before scrambling them with the stuff, people shouldn't
drive when high, pregnant women shouldn't poison their developing
fetuses and people with mental problems should refrain lest they go
berserk.

There's a tendency in this faster-paced age for people to throw up
their hands and say there's no point in trying to stop what's
unstoppable, that policing the Internet, for example, is too
difficult, that drivers should be provided roadside digital signs to
show how fast they're exceeding the speed limit instead of being
stopped and fined for doing so.

Similarly, marijuana can be regarded simply as an invasive plant that
we might as well get used to in certain neighbourhoods where not much
else grows anyway. Well, I'm sorry, but society can't reserve its
disapprobation for what's convenient to police (the verb).

Neither, though, should it involve police (the noun) in endless
schemes both good and new for Titipu (or Canada) that seem designed
not to do what they're proclaimed to do.

Last week, the RCMP unveiled a website to list the addresses where
illegal marijuana grow-ops and chemical labs have been uncovered
within the past year.

What struck me first on visiting it on Friday was that B.C., with 72
seizures, was far better represented than it is in the House of
Commons. Most other provinces had between six and 11. Ontario had
three, Quebec, two.

The reason, of course, is that the website shows only what the
Mounties have found. I don't know if other police departments were
invited to take part in this show and tell, but I can understand if
they refused.

The addresses will be listed for only a year. Website disclaimers say
they may be accurate; they may not.

They say the addresses "may have, at one time," been where grow-ops or
clandestine labs "may have been located."

The information is "not warranted." Some addresses "may have been
erroneously included." The lists are "not exhaustive," and are "not
intended to be relied upon by any individuals."

So what are the damn things for then? To embarrass property owners? To
titillate neighbours? To show that the Mounties are as fixated today
on Mary Jane as they were, once, on Rose Marie?

Well, it emerges that grow-ops are a problem for realtors, so the RCMP
commissioner in a suit has decided to help them sell houses that may,
or may not, be "clean."

Sometimes it's tough to get tough on crime.