DEATHS LEND URGENCY TO 'TRIVIAL' POT DEBATE

In the eight years that I have been studying and critiquing the war on
marijuana, I've occasionally been asked why I spend so much time on an
issue many people think is, at best, trivial. I answered by citing the
involvement of major organized crime networks, the billions of dollars
spent on enforcement and the criminalization of hundreds of thousands
of otherwise lawful citizens for consuming a substance that is, by any
fair measure, less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

But today there is a simpler response: Four men are dead.

Let this be the end of scant attention, of dismissive comments, of
news stories laced with trivializing puns and juvenile jokes.

Marijuana is an urgent issue of public policy. The police have been
complaining for years that the media and the public do not appreciate
that this is a serious matter, that the spread of marijuana grow-ops
is a risk to public safety, that good men and women are in jeopardy
every time they bang on a door with a search warrant. They were right
all along.

Let us respect the police by treating the issue with the same
solemnity and gravity they surely feel while contemplating the deaths
of their comrades.

That means, among others things, not acting rashly. It is only human
that the shock and sorrow of such a horrific crime would give way to
anger and an urge to hit hard and fast. Already there have been
numerous calls for tougher enforcement and harsher laws, including
severe mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana growers.

Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan says the government is
considering just that, while RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli
has promised a crackdown and a renewed commitment to making "a
drug-free Canada."

But to treat the issue with solemnity and gravity means precisely to
take care that passion does not overwhelm judgment. It means gathering
the evidence, examining the arguments and thinking hard about the way
forward. It means asking ourselves how it ever came to be that police
officers are being murdered because of a plant.

That's all marijuana is, after all. It's just a plant, a common and
easily grown one at that. In many cultures, its consumption was lawful
for millennia. And in all that time, the bond between thugs, mayhem,
murder and marijuana that we see today did not exist.

That changed early in the 20th century. In 1923, Canada -- with not a
word of discussion in Parliament -- banned marijuana. Other countries
- -- motivated as Canada was by a toxic mix of popular myths,
pseudo-science and racism -- did the same. The moment they did, the
trade left the hands of law-abiding producers and fell to the
exclusive control of criminals. That control, not any property of the
drug itself, is the steel link between marijuana and crime.

At the same time in the United States, Prohibition created precisely
the same link between alcohol and crime -- the only difference being
that it was broken when alcohol was legalized in 1933.

This brief history is relatively uncontroversial. Aside from a few
zealots who still cling to the fantasy that there is something about
the chemistry of marijuana that makes users more inclined to crime, no
one disputes that the bond between marijuana and crime is exclusively
the result of the fact that marijuana is illegal. The grow-ops, the
gangsters and, yes, the dangers faced by police officers enforcing the
law: All these exist because of a policy decision.

"The way we've done it now is marijuana has become the exclusive
prerogative of the criminal element because there's such fantastic
profit in it," said Nick Taylor, a former Alberta senator. "I'm not
saying that the four men would be alive if we had legalized marijuana,
but I suspect they might be."

Legalization would undeniably break the link between marijuana and
crime. That's a major reason why a Senate Special Committee
recommended that marijuana be legalized and regulated.

Unfortunately, the police ignored the senators and their 650-page
report -- one of the most comprehensive ever produced in any country
- -- and instead pressed for more resources and tougher laws.

The government, too, never gave the Senate report the slightest
consideration. Instead, the Liberals introduced a bill that would
"decriminalize" the possession of small amounts of marijuana --
meaning a ticket instead of a criminal charge -- while boosting the
maximum sentences for large-scale growers. And this was before the
murders on Thursday and Anne McLellan's promise to consider further
sentencing increases for growers.

If this issue is to be treated seriously, this dismissiveness must end
and a real discussion must be had. By a remarkable coincidence, the
Liberal policy convention in Ottawa this weekend offers a real hope
for that.

Two resolutions are on the agenda: One calls for tougher sentences on
grow operators; the other calls for the legalization of marijuana.
It's a good chance to ask some hard questions.

Most basically, why does anyone think harsher sentences will
accomplish anything? The police say this will deter would-be growers,
noting that in the United States, producers and traffickers are
punished far more severely. But criminological research consistently
shows tougher sentences do not deter crime. And the police never
mention that despite the tough American sentences, and the immense
sums of money spent fighting the war on marijuana, government reports
routinely find that the U.S. is awash in marijuana, and the largest
source of that pot is the United States itself.

Recent Canadian history makes the same point. In the early 1960s,
Canada's already tough drug laws were made tougher on the advice of
the top American drug official who insisted that longer sentences
deterred drug crime. Yet almost immediately after the new sentences
came into force, drug production, dealing and use began to soar -- and
kept on rising for almost two decades, even at a time when the simple
possession of a joint could mean serious jail time.

Here's a simpler question: Can those who support a crackdown name any
country in which tougher law enforcement has successfully suppressed
the illicit marijuana trade? A few years ago, a United Nations report
attempted to dismiss the argument that drug prohibition is futile by
pointing out that there was one successful example: Maoist China.
Assuming we wish to remain a liberal democracy, what reason do those
advocating a crackdown on marijuana production think it will
accomplish anything more than to put more officers' lives at risk?

As always, reasonable people can differ on this issue, and if those
who insist on sticking with prohibition have a case to make -- with
evidence, not the assumptions and conjecture that too often pass for
argument -- I want to hear it. Honest disagreement is honorable.

Much less so is hypocrisy. Over the years I've had many private
conversations about drugs with politicians, political staff, senior
civil servants, journalists and police officers. And what I hear in
private is not what I hear in public. In Official Ottawa, a remarkable
number of people -- including some well known and powerful figures --
think the war on marijuana is nothing less than ludicrous. And truth
be told, more than a few like to smoke an occasional joint.

As long as marijuana could be dismissed as a trivial issue, this
hypocrisy could be shrugged off as a venal sin. But now four men are
dead.

They died in pursuit of a futile policy, and if that policy doesn't
change more officers will put themselves at risk. Sooner or later more
names will be etched into the police memorials.

More than anything, treating the issue with due solemnity and gravity
requires honesty

It is time those who have kept silent to find their courage and speak
up.