DRUG USE AND THE COURTS

In recent years, Canada's courts have all but given up trying to
prosecute marijuana possession and the federal government continues to
dangle a law that would decriminalize pot use. Both moves are widely
accepted as necessary to avoid choking the courts with simple
possession cases, the results of which would leave an untold number of
otherwise law-abiding Canadians with a criminal record.

It's curious, then, that federal drug prosecutor Robert Topp used a
Sudbury courtroom as a pulpit earlier this week to rail against
society's lack of understanding of the evils of marijuana abuse.

Topp was moved to speak about the case of a local 22-year-old man
convicted of breaking into a car and stealing some groceries and
$2.50. It was the fourth conviction on drug or property charges since
September for the man, who admitted a heavy addiction to marijuana.

"Where oh where are those people who continually parade around our
country and say that marijuana use doesn't cause any problems and is
an absolutely safe drug," asked Topp during the hearing.

To be sure, pot use is not without problems, and no one should be
encouraged to use it. It's often labelled a gateway drug, or one that
leads to other, harder drugs that come with far more serious side
effects. But statistics clearly disprove the theory that all marijuana
users are risks to move on to more insidious drugs.

When the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee recommended
in 1996 loosening possession laws, it estimated three million
Canadians used marijuana and hashish recreationally -- an estimate
they added was likely conservative. The overwhelming majority of these
users resist the progression to harder drugs.

In any case, harder drug use is not the problem Topp was referring to.
Topp was concerned this man had an addiction that caused him to commit
crimes. While perhaps true, it bears repeating that such cases are the
exception rather than the rule. Very few of Canada's silent army of
pot smokers face social or legal problems stemming from their use.

No one says pot is an absolutely safe drug. Which is not to say
marijuana use should be ignored. Findings published in the Journal of
the American Medical Association last year showed long-term marijuana
use can lead to addiction. According to the study, marijuana use by
teenagers who have prior antisocial problems can quickly lead to addiction.

The study also found some teens cannot control their urges to seek out
and use marijuana, even though it negatively affects their family
relationships, school performance and recreational activities.

But every drug has negative consequences, including many legal ones,
including those prescribed by a physician. It is becoming widely
accepted, for example, that the consequences of alcohol use (and
abuse) are at least as damaging, if not more damaging, than smoking
pot can be. That is the basis behind the push to decriminalize pot
smoking in Canada and many other Western countries -- that it makes no
sense to criminalize some behaviours and not others.

In the end, the plea in the courts to consider the effects of
marijuana use is a useful one -- but not in isolation. All drugs are
bad when used to excess. Now that's something fro the courts to consider.