BLAME MARY JANE

Stoner Slaying Verdict Peeves Pot Advocates

A decision two weeks ago by Longueuil court Judge Gilles Hebert to accept
that marijuana led a man to kill his roommate has marijuana advocates fuming.

Originally charged with second degree murder, Martin Veilleux, 31, pleaded
guilty to a reduced sentence of eight years for involuntary manslaughter
for stabbing his roommate eight times on March 5, 2003. Veilleux, who had
consumed a wide variety of drugs over the years and had gone into drug
rehab eight times in the last decade, reportedly smoked marijuana prior to
the killing.

The verdict isn't good news for the ongoing effort to rehabilitate the
reputation of the wacky weed. "It feels like we're back in 1940 in the age
of reefer madness. I can understand that the judge, given the evidence he
heard, may have reached that conclusion, but I feel he did it in error,"
says Marijuana Party leader Boris St-Maurice, who has tirelessly lobbied to
legalize the drug. He also followed this case closely.

St-Maurice notes that no scientific evidence was presented to justify the
claim that marijuana caused the killing. "The judge mentioned the high
levels of THC but no one knows what he was smoking, so reaching quick
conclusions without the whole picture is wrong," he says. "The fact is,
marijuana doesn't cause psychosis. It's one of the safest drugs being used,
and if there was any truth to the notion that marijuana caused this kind of
behaviour, given the millions of marijuana users in Canada, there would be
blood running in the streets."

The reduced sentence was based partly on a report by expert defence witness
Dr. Louis Morissette, a psychiatrist at the Pinel Institute for the
criminally insane, who considers marijuana psychosis not-so rare. "The
great majority consume it and have no problem, but [marijuana psychosis] is
something you see at psychiatric emergency wards," he says. "Marijuana is
not as harmless as we believe nor is it catastrophic every time. One must
talk about the individual, the context in which he takes marijuana."

Morissette concedes that dangerous accompanying agents mixed in Veilleux's
pot could conceivably be at the root of the stabbing and suggests that
legalization of marijuana could lead to more quality control. "It could be
like alcohol. If you buy alcohol at the SAQ, you can drink it and have a
headache tomorrow, but you won't be blind."

Morissette says it's not unusual for a judge to lessen a sentence due to
diminished capacity caused by marijuana.

But one Universite de Montreal criminologist disagrees. "I've followed it
very closely for 30 years and I don't know any other such case where mental
disassociation is considered caused by cannabis consumption. From what I
know such cases must be extremely rare," says Marie-Andree Bertrand. She
also considers the decision to lessen a sentenced due to somebody being
extremely stoned as outdated. "Thirty years ago drunkenness and
hallucinogenic drugs could be invoked as excuses, now it's the reverse. If
you have an accident while drunk, it's considered even more serious."

Bertrand, who has advocated legalization for decades, is unimpressed by the
ruling. "So marijuana drives you crazy and makes you want to kill, it makes
you criminal, and takes you over like a demon. This decision brings us back
to 1928 when people used to believe these things."