POT LAW PROPOSAL FALLS FLAT HERE

Parking Tickets, Speeding Tickets . . . Pot Tickets?

Proposed legislation announced this week by the federal goverment could see
smaller quantities of marijuana penalized by fine instead of heading
through the court system.

Depending on the amount, the age of the person, and aggravating factors
such as operating a vehicle, fines would range from $100 to $400. The move,
announced simultaneously with a $245 million, five-year drug strategy aimed
at reducing substance abuse, was quick to come under fire.

"This bill is a poor excuse for reform of our laws," Langley-Abbotsford
(Canadian Alliance) MP Randy White said, noting his party has said it was
in favour of responsible decriminalization of small amounts of cannabis for
personal use, with a maximum of five grams for non-criminal possession.

The proposed legislation, White said, would see that maximum set at 15 grams.

"We still need stiffer fines and jail terms for the massive problem of
marijuna grow-ops."

White went on to say that the renewed drug strategy made little
consideration to the House of Commons committee that studied the issue for
18 months and made 41 recommendations.

"The most telling problem with the new strategy is the fact that reduced
harm, rather than a drug-free Canada, is listed as the new goal. This
government can't win the war, so they have given up the fight on several
fronts."

Fellow Canadian Alliance MP Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley) also criticized
the proposal, Bill C-38, saying it sends the wrong message to youth.

"If you give a young person a lower penalty for possession than an adult,
how does that teach responsibility? It only tells someone that if I as a
young person do something illegal, it's not as bad as if an adult does it."

Uultsje DeJong, an Abbotsford school trustee and anti-drug campaigner,
agrees with Strahl.

"The school district has taken a stand that de-criminalization is not a
good thing. The problem for me is where does it stop? It's just another
slippery slope we're on here," he said.

"We all want a safer and healthier community, but this is not the way to go
about it. The federal government has missed their opportunity to make our
communities safer, to help our kids, help those who are already addicted.
And for what? So they can say they've done something?"

Tim Felger, a local marijuana advocate and member of the Marijuana party,
also criticized the tabled legislation, saying it doesn't go far enough in
the complete decriminalization that he would like to see.

"I'm calling Randy White and telling him to sit down and shut up. It's just
totally ridiculous to make pot (a) criminal (offence)," Felger said.
"Sooner or later we're going to beat the opposition, we're going to win. I
want to be the first one arrested (under the proposed legislation) and I'll
fight them all the way to the end with it, and in the end I'll be proved
right."

The legislation proposes heftier penalties for grow operators. Federal
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon and Health Minister Anne McLellan have said
there is no intention to legalize pot.

"Make no mistake, marijuana is harmful and it will remain illegal,"
McLellan told reporters in Ottawa earlier this week.

The maximum penalty for growing more than 50 plants would increase to a
14-year prison sentence from the current 7-year sentence.

Strahl says the bill still doesn't present a "heavy enough hand" for
grow-ops, a problem he calls "prevalent" in the Fraser Valley.