NEW POT LAW ON RIGHT TRACK

At last.

This week federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon announced that long
overdue changes to the way Canada deals with the non-medical drug situation
will soon be tabled in the House of Commons.

It's well past time. The new laws being discussed now make a whole lot more
sense than the American-style War on Drugs" that has been the order of the
day for so long. Rather than lumping pot smokers with a criminal record,
the new law being discussed would decriminalize the possession of small
amounts of marijuana for personal use. Instead, they will be handed a fine,
rather like a parking ticket. As it stands, someone with 30 grams of pot on
their person could be jailed for up to six months and fined up to $1,000.

True, that extreme sort of sentence is rarely if ever carried out, and for
a very good reason. Judges are fully aware that this is an unreasonable
penalty for a minor offence and they are simply unwilling to impose such an
overly harsh punishment. That being the case, it makes sense to realize
that this law should be changed.

Meanwhile, under our present system, far too many police hours and
resources are being spent on rounding up and prosecuting pot smokers.
Perhaps under the new regime, police officers who now spend their time
sniffing out the smell of marijuana can use their time more constructively
by solving crimes that actually involve violence or theft.

Let's get real here. The "War on Drugs" is a failure. It failed long ago,
actually, but our government has consistently failed to recognize that
fact. It appears they have finally done so. Let's hope they follow up on
that realization.