BAD LAWS AND THE PEOPLE WHO CHANGE THEM

It Wasn't The Unlawful Open Selling Of Pot That Brought The Heat Down On Da
Kine Cafe. It Was The Lawful Political Dissent Expressed In That Act That
Brought Out The Shields

Pot is harmless

If pigs could fly, Commercial Drive would have needed an air traffic
control tower last week. What sent police alarms ringing? Most assume
police spokesperson Sarah Bloor summed it up well enough: the open selling
of pot at Da Kine Cafe.

But pot has been openly sold on Commercial Drive for two decades at least,
with only occasional and mild police interest when someone who never got to
have any back in university complains loudly.

What the police failed to mention, and hence what the embedded media
largely failed to notice, is that a good proportion of the customers at Da
Kine are victims of cancer attempting to alleviate the worst of the
side-effects of brutal and repeated chemotherapy treatments, or they are
victims of the AIDS virus attempting to restore life-prolonging appetites.
Whatever the ailment, every pot-purchasing customer at Da Kine is required
to present a written doctor's recommendation that cannabis be taken, or to
fill out a lengthy form with all manner of personal health information.

Was a good proportion of the pot anyway being used for recreational
purposes? No doubt. But despite being easily the most thoroughly tested
substance, no credible study by qualified scientists (and there have been
hundreds over the decades) has ever produced evidence of one significant
hazard associated with taking cannabis.

There is a risk of lung cancer from smoking it, but since most cannabis is
natural, organic, and without industrial preservatives, the risk pales in
comparison to that posed by commercially produced tobacco cigarettes that
typically contain strychnine and paint thinner amongst other bizarre
impurities.

In any event, scientists have found that vapour containing all the active
ingredients can be released by heating cannabis to temperatures just below
that required to burn it. As a result, there are now devices that heat
cannabis enough to release those vapours for inhalation without any of the
risks associated with smoke from burning.

When it was well enough established about two decades ago that marijuana
presented no significant risks, those opposed to its legalization invented
the "gateway" myth, wherein it was held that allowing someone to smoke pot
would lead them to try all manner of other dangerous illicit substances.
Pot was therefore kept illegal not on the grounds that it was bad, but on
the grounds that people would use other stuff that was bad once they got
"hooked" on pot and wanted higher highs.

There is no evidence that the gateway phenomenon occurs outside the active
imaginations of those who oppose use of the substance. There was a long and
probing search for evidence, but none of it showed that marijuana was any
more a gateway drug to dangerous substances than water is (all heroin
addicts started with water, it's true....).

The latest argument is that marijuana can impair someone's ability to drive
a car, and therefore possession of the substance should remain illegal.
This could be true, but only if someone gets too stoned. But does everyone
who enjoys alcohol get plaster-faced and legless every time they indulge?
No, they have a little bit, perhaps a couple of beers, they enjoy their
conversation, and then they go home. The premier of British Columbia, at
least once in recent time anyway, did get legless in Hawaii while driving,
but was forgiven by the people and the leaders of our community. Rich
Coleman, solicitor general, opined very prominently that Da Kine
proprietors should face the wrath of the law for selling bits of cannabis
to medicinal users, but was noticeably silent on the matter of his own boss
screaming down Hawaiian highways on the wrong side with triple the legal
dose of alcohol in his blood.

Anyone can observe common usage of cannabis: almost all users have a little
and enjoy themselves a little bit. Sometimes, like with alcohol or coffee,
new younger users (or middle-aged premiers worried about pregnant lovers)
over do it-they haven't learned control yet, neither in the ingestion of
society's common drugs, legal and otherwise, nor in their personal
relationships, their sleep, their work, and so on. They are young and it's
why we call them that.

Everybody's doing it

These are not arguments that should have to be made anymore in a
democratically controlled society in the 21 st Century. Two successive
ex-Prime Ministers, and five of the last six, have all but explicitly
admitted in public to enjoying cannabis at some point in their lives. So
widespread and common is the use of cannabis that voters are suspicious
more about those candidates for office who obviously never have tried the
stuff. Presuming that someone proposing themselves as a representative of
the people and a minister at the provincial or federal level should have at
least an undergraduate education to master the material of office, what
kind of person could have attended an institution of higher learning
anytime since 1970 and not be offered, and accept, a joint at some point?
We all remember at least one person like that, and they were never
representative of anyone but themselves.

It goes without saying that most lawyers, prosecutors, and judges, all
university graduates, cannot have completed their studies if they avoided
the important socialization that surrounds pot usage on campuses. It is
likely that when someone is brought before the court on charges to do with
marijuana, the officer who laid the charge, the prosecutor presenting the
case to court, the lawyer defending the person charged, the judge hearing
the case, and a good number of the attending clerks and assistants, are all
intimately and personally familiar with the matter being discussed. It is
plausible that some of them will leave work and have a little pot that
evening. It is nothing short of jaw dropping hypocrisy that anyone is
charged with any crime to do with small amounts of cannabis today.

And the federal government agrees. Possession of marijuana for medicinal
purposes was legalized two years ago. Yet still, over 41,000 people were
charged last year for simple possession of marijuana. Simple possession of
pot accounts for half of all drug crimes.

Everyone who is vaguely aware of public policy in this field knows that the
law is in the midst of a transition where possession is virtually legal,
and even encouraged by some doctors, while producing, marketing, and
purchasing the substance remains illegal. Those laws are on their way out,
but simply need time for lawmakers to make it official, much like, for
example, the law that lingers in Kansas making it illegal to serve wine in
a coffee mug.

Why does it remain illegal?

So why were the proprietors and customers at Da Kine set upon by a drove of
police last week? It wasn't because some people were selling and buying
small amounts of cannabis. That happens every moment of every day up and
down this and so many other streets in this and so many other cities across
the country without so much as a brake light from lazily passing police.
What drew police attention to Da Kine was that the proprietors did not feel
they needed or should hide what they do, and when asked by local media,
admitted freely to selling cannabis over the counter. Defiance of law is
one thing, but open and proud defiance is quite another in the eyes of the
authorities. If a law is unjust, such as the one that makes purchasing
cannabis illegal, no one, most police included, will mind quiet defiance of
that law. Only blocks up the same street, the Compassion Club has been
openly, but quietly, selling marijuana for eight years. But loud defiance
draws into question more than just the particular law being challenged. It
poses a threat to the idea of law and order itself, in the minds of officials.

Yet often it takes loud defiance of an unjust law to force lawmakers to
finally change it. Blacks would never have seen segregation laws in the US
struck down if they did not defy them openly and loudly, as long-time
activist, and long-time law-abider, Rosa Lee Parks proved on a bus in 1953.

There is a well-documented phenomenon that sees authorities often
interested in keeping inconsequential or stale meaningless laws on the
books in order to have something with which to charge criminals when they
can't nail them for the more serious crimes. Famous murdering gangster Al
Capone was never convicted of serious crimes, but was taken down with
obscure and quite pointless (by then) mail fraud charges that were only
accidentally still enforceable laws.

Also, some outdated laws are deliberately kept on the books to allow
authorities to covertly pursue unrelated political objectives under the
cover of prosecuting law. This is explicitly the case at least in part with
laws criminalizing cannabis. Politicians at the federal level have openly
admitted that preserving good relations with cannabis-averse Washington
dictate that we not lighten our own laws, however sensible and popular that
change would be. Cannabis remains illegal here in part to help the
government achieve political objectives in wholly unrelated parts of
international relations policies, like healthy trade in pigs, for example.

In the case of the Da Kine raid last week, it was as much the open and loud
defiance of law that brought down the heat as it was the open selling of
marijuana. The political objective of the police in this case was to
prevent what they no doubt see as a general breakdown of the rule of law
itself. Even the mayor, a former police detective, supports this view.
Larry Campbell said that he fully supports the legalization of marijuana.
But, he said, for the time being it remains illegal, and so the police were
required to act to preserve the rule of law.

They see a slippery slope in this case. This commentator sees a slippery
slope too. If the police are allowed to openly and defiantly employ their
monopoly on violence and prosecute unjust laws in the pursuit of unrelated
political objectives, they are well on the road to instituting systemic
police abuse of the rule of law itself. The threat to law and order in this
case is much greater when it comes from hundreds of well-armed and
well-paid men and women, than when it comes from a few compassionate people
working a non-profit society for the benefit of ill people and those
seeking a bit of harmless pleasure. Stamp out abuse of law by all means.
But start at the top and work your way down, not the other way around, to
be effective.