DECRIMINALIZATION JUST SMOKE AND MIRRORS

I must confess my failure to understand the move to decriminalize
marijuana. It misses the point entirely.

Yet, as we enter this new year, we are closer to taking that step than any
time since pot possession was made a criminal offence during Prohibition 80
years ago.

Canada's justice minister says he plans to remove criminal sanctions
against simple possession. Instead, people in possession of the evil weed
for personal use would apparently be subject to a fine, something like a
parking ticket.

And this week, another national survey was produced to say that about half
the people in this country agree with relaxing pot laws. The support, we
are told, is no longer limited to young people, and higher-income
households-those with more than $100,000 a year-are more in favour than the
average.

British Columbians led the nation in the desire to see the laws changed.
Just as predictably, in the news story detailing the results of the survey,
unnamed sources from the United States threatened trade-related reprisals
against Canada if it doesn't drop this "reefer madness."

Our pot laws present a real challenge for parents. Try explaining to your
kids why alcohol, which accounts for 40 per cent of motor vehicle deaths,
is legal and pot is not.

Explain to them why tobacco, which can kill you if it's used as suggested
by the manufacturer, is still legally available. But getting caught with a
bag of pot in your pocket can ruin your life.

While you're searching for answers, there are two sources you should avoid:
drug dealers and the cops. Both have a vested interest in maintaining the
status quo.

Crooks make a fortune peddling pot. Prohibition does that. A good chunk of
the criminal justice system, particularly south of the border, stays in
business by keeping pot illegal.

Cops, including our own police chief, Jamie Graham, continue to maintain
the fiction that pot is a "gateway drug," which is to say there is an
inevitable path from pot smoking to cranking up on heroin. Graham stunned
the Vancouver Police Board a few months ago with that opinion.

In fact, pot was never a widespread drug before Prohibition. It was used
mostly by fringe groups with little political clout. When Prohibition was
lifted, the booze and tobacco peddlers convinced their pals in power to
leave pot on the controlled substance list to avoid competition.

What puzzles me is not that Canadians see the folly of our current laws.
What I can't understand is why we just don't make the stuff legal.

Decriminalizing possession only gets rid of a small part of the problem.
For starters: How do you explain to your kids that pot possession is simply
a bylaw violation, like using a leaf blower in the middle of the night or
riding your bike on the sidewalk?

It would make more sense to treat pot like booze-government regulated and
taxed. People who want to produce a bit for their own use, like the folks
who turn out a few cases of beer or wine in their basements every year,
would be free to do so.

People who drive while impaired would be busted. Interestingly enough,
where pot laws have been liberalized, use among young people has actually
declined. Compare high school students in Amsterdam with those in San
Francisco.

Make pot legal, remove the profit and you may substantially damage the
economies of a number of Gulf Islands and several towns in the B.C. Interior.

But more to the point, take the profit out of pot and you would get rid of
the crooks.

That won't happen if you simply decriminalize the drug. Instead, you would
still have much of what is bad about prohibition, and our American friends
would still be unhappy with us.