DECRIMINALIZE POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA

Stories you rarely see in a newspaper:

Thousands of football fans, many of them stoned on marijuana, rampaged
through downtown yesterday, breaking windows, overturning cars and setting
fires after their team won the championship.

Amother and her two young children were gunned down yesterday by a jilted
boyfriend high on marijuana.

Misuse of marijuana costs the economy billions of dollars in increased
costs for social services, health care, crime-fighting and absenteeism,
according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

We could go on, but you get the point. Substitute the word alcohol for
marijuana and the stories become instantly recognizable as variations of
the reports we hear and read about every week.

In a rational world, if one of the two substances, liquor or marijuana, was
illegal, it would be liquor. In our world it's pot.

Why?

Despite decades of study, the worst researchers can say about marijuana
with any degree of certainty is that it limits a user's ability to
concentrate, impairs judgement and affects short-term memory.

It also contains scores of chemicals in addition to the active ingredient
THC, many of uncertain toxicity.

Worrisome, yes, but compare that to smoking tobacco. Messages on cigarette
packages warn smokers of many horrible consequences of lighting up, all of
them well documented. The only valid warning you could put on a pack of
joints would say, "Smoking ANYTHING is bad for your lungs."

Light up a cigarette, also known as a cancer stick, and people near you may
frown. Light up a joint and the police will charge you with a crime. More
than 600,000 Canadians have criminal records today for the simple
possession of marijuana.

Canadian police forces spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year
trying to stamp out the cultivation and use of pot. If they're making any
headway, we don't see it.

Even those who of us who don't smoke pot don't see it as evil. A recent
National Post poll indicates almost two-thirds of Canadians believe
possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use should be a
non-criminal offence, punishable by a fine rather than a jail term.

So does the House of Commons Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs.
It has recommended Ottawa decriminalize the possession and cultivation of
not more than thirty grams of cannabis for personal use.

So does Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, who said he will consider a new
policy that would decriminalize marijuana as a first step in reforming drug
laws. "The legislation in place is sort of disconnected with Canadian
reality," he said.

The Canadian Senate has gone even farther. In September, it concluded that
prohibiting marijuana contributes to organized crime and law enforcement
efforts little impact on use. It recommended letting people smoke pot
without penalty.

"Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is
substantially less harmful than alcohol, and should be treated not as a
criminal issue, but as a social and public health issue," said Senator
Pierre Claude Nolin. The evidence supports decriminalizing marijuana.
Public opinion favours it. Political leaders support it. So why is simple
possession still a crime?

It's time to deal with this issue. Let's get some legislation on the table
and hold a national debate. We're often told, if it ain't broke, don't fix
it. Well, the opposite holds true as well: if it is broke, fix it.