GET OFF THE POT

Police in the Sault Ste. Marie area are right to have stopped laying
possession charges for small amounts of marijuana -- they have little
choice, considering the current confusion about the law.

It's too bad they are still spending a lot of time and effort investigating
such cases and noting personal information about people with small
quantities of pot, however, collecting data in case charges will be laid later.

While confiscation of the drugs is proper -- even under proposed
decriminalization, possession of small amounts would still be against the
law and would draw fines -- all the effort and time police continue to put
into that area is a monumental waste.

Sault Ste. Marie is a pretty safe city, but it's not totally crime-free.
There are better things for highly paid professional police officers to be
doing than chase down people with a few marijuana cigarettes, considering
nothing or next to nothing is likely to be done by the courts.

Ottawa is responsible for this whole mess, being so slow to react to a July
2000 court order to come up with new marijuana laws. Early this year, an
Ontario court ruled that there was no legal basis for banning simple
possession since the federal government had not complied.

Despite a federal appeal, other courts have ruled that possessing less than
30 grams is no longer illegal in the province. Some judges have been
adjourning trials or throwing out charges altogether -- as Ontario Court
Justice James Greco did in the Sault.

Like police, courts have much more pressing matters than dealing with
simple possession whose status is in limbo. Courts should routinely follow
Greco's example and throw out such cases to streamline the clogged justice
system.

Because local police are facing such uncertainty about what will be deemed
criminal and what won't, they are erring on the side of caution in both
directions at once.

They won't lay charges because they could face a civil suit if it is
finally determined possession is not a criminal offence, but they are
confiscating all amounts regardless of how tiny the quantity. Charges are
laid only if police believe trafficking is obviously involved, since there
is no ambiguity about the criminality of that offence under current or
proposed legislation.

It would be good if the Court of Appeal could expedite a ruling so that
police and the justice system as a whole had a better idea of how and when
to proceed.

But with Ottawa already floating proposed reforms to marijuana legislation,
the real solution is to get that on the books as quickly as possible.

It's time for for the federal government to get off the pot.