HOW CRIMES CHANGE

The suggestion that the justice system fails to keep up with public
attitudes is true (Too Many Pot Busts -- Feb. 25). A reading of the 1939
Criminal Code of Canada dramatically illustrates the extent to which times
and the law can change.

In those "good old days," consensual "buggery" could attract a life
sentence. The act of oral sex between males was a "gross indecency"
attracting up to five years in prison and whipping with a
cat-o'-nine-tails. Advertising condoms was an indictable offence liable to
two years imprisonment. Reporting salacious details of divorce proceedings
could lead to four months in jail. A doctor committing abortion risked life
imprisonment and the woman seven years in jail.

The plain, dismal fact is that if public demand for a substance or
activity, no matter how reprehensible, is high, criminalization will not
work. Indeed, it is almost sure to be counterproductive, as illustrated by
the disastrous American experiment with prohibition of "the demon drink."

Decriminalization is a begrudging, belated recognition of the inevitability
that marijuana, like condoms in the drugstore and alcohol on open shelves,
is here to stay.

Bill Johnston,

Waterloo, Ont.