B.C. JUDGE'S COMMENTS IN POT APPEAL RULING SPARKS FURY

VANCOUVER (CP) -- A Canadian Alliance MP had harsh words on Monday for a
B.C. Appeal Court judge who wrote in a recent ruling she no longer thinks
marijuana offences are serious crimes.

In the ruling issued on Friday, Justice Mary Southin wrote she has sat on
over 40 cases that had something to do with this substance, which appears to
be of no greater danger to society than alcohol.

But Randy White, police issues critic for the Canadian Alliance, said that
statement flies in the face of what he learned while serving as vice-chair
of a parliamentary committee on non-medical drug use.

"I spent 18 months looking at this issue from parliament's point of view,"
said White.

"The fact is medical associations will tell you marijuana has some serious
consequences to its use. Also, marijuana has some medicinal use.

"But far be it for a judge to make those decisions."

Southin's comments were included in a B.C. Appeal Court ruling that found
Vancouver police officers violated basic rights when they used a battering
ram to break down the door of a suspected marijuana-grow operation without
first knocking.

A three-judge appeal panel, including Southin, unanimously found the breach
of a couple's rights was so serious that the evidence obtained during the
1999 raid should be excluded from the case against Bradley Cecil Schedel and
his wife, Kuestan Hassen Schedel.

Southin agreed with the judge writing the decision on the raid but decided
to include her own thoughts on marijuana and its criminal consequences.

That decision resulted in their being acquitted of operating a marijuana
grow-op.

In her reasons for judgment, Southin wrote although she once accepted the
received wisdom that marijuana offences were serious crimes, she now has a
different opinion.

"I have not yet abandoned my conviction that Parliament has a constitutional
right to be hoodwinked, as it was in the 1920s and 1930s by the propaganda
against marijuana, and remain to be hoodwinked.

"The growing, trafficking in, and possession of (marijuana) is the source of
much work, not only for peace officers but also for lawyers and judges," she
wrote.

Alcohol does seem to pose a far greater health risk than marijuana, said

Richard Garlick, a spokesperson for the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse,
an Ottawa-based policy centre on drug-health issues.

"Certainly statistics would back up what the judge is saying," said Garlick.
"Alcohol kills thousands of people every year, directly or indirectly,
(while with) cannabis there are really no known cases or recorded cases of
people dying from cannabis overdose."

But it's still not a benign substance and has harmful effects, he said.

"Although I can see for the point of view of someone in the justice system
in the courts, I suppose it must seem like a waste of time to be dealing
with cannabis cases when there are so many worse problems related to
alcohol," he said.

But Garlick said he doubted statements by judges would have much of an
impact on peoples' decision to smoke pot.

"I don't think young people nowadays are responding to messages from judges,
they are responding to messages from peers," he said. "In very large numbers
they are using cannabis."

Garlick said his organization supports decriminalization of marijuana along
the lines of proposed legislation which would make possession of up to 15
grams of pot -- enough to roll about 15 to 20 joints -- a minor offence that
carries no criminal record.

"Anything that can help reduce the stigma and the criminal liability around
cannabis possession does have the potential to lead to this issue being
dealt with more as a health concern and that would certainly be something we
would support," he said.

Garlick said Southin's comments seemed to be keeping with recent rulings by
other judges.

Police organizations in Ontario have said they will not lay charges for
possession of marijuana under 30 grams until the country's muddled pot laws
are clarified.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled June 10 that it would not overturn a
precedent-setting Ontario Superior Court decision that cleared a teenager of
marijuana possession charges.

The Superior Court judge ruled there is no current ban on pot possession in
Ontario since the federal government failed to comply with a July 2000 court
order to create a new law dealing with the drug.

The B.C. appeal court judgment issued Friday said the knock-notice rule has
been part of the common law for centuries and is of fundamental importance
in protecting residents from unreasonable search and seizure of their homes.

Appeal Court Justice William Esson wrote the evidence of the grow operation
in the Schedel case could have been obtained without violating rights
protected by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"The circumstance that the Vancouver police department deliberately adopted
a policy of ignoring the most fundamental rule protecting citizens from an
unreasonable invasion of their dwelling put this violation, in my view, at
the most serious end of the spectrum,"' Esson said.