FEDS' POT PROPOSAL GETS BLUNT CRITICISM

Cops Cool To Committee's Recommendation On Marijuana

Decriminalizing pot would not stall organized crime or free up police
resources, said the city's police drug unit yesterday.

The comments came after a Parliamentary committee recommended
decriminalizing the possession and cultivation of 30 grams of marijuana or
less.

The decriminalization of cannabis will free up police resources and weaken
organized crime's grip on the drug, said the committee.

Not so, said Calgary drug unit Det. Robert Atkinson.

Because possession is currently a summary conviction, someone caught with
30 grams or less of cannabis will not do time and will not be photographed
or fingerprinted, he said.

Instead, they pay a fine and get a criminal record. What the committee
proposes is to eliminate the criminal record aspect of the conviction, he said.

The proposed changes are minute, few police resources would be freed up
because of them and they would do little to thwart organized crime, said
Atkinson.

"We've seen a marked increase by organized crime from trafficking cocaine
and heroin to trafficking marijuana," he said.

"The cost of doing business for traffickers will also be less," if the
recommendations are approved, said Atkinson.

With the latest recommendations, the government proved they have missed the
point, said cannabis for medicinal purposes advocates.

The ill who depend on marijuana for relief still have no legal access to it
and are still subject to fines, said crusader Grant Krieger, who called the
announcement "ridiculous."

"We still have a nation full of sick people who have no access," he said.

Digested forms of cannabis can be 20 times more effective than its smoked
form but all that's available to sufferers is illegally purchased smoking
marijuana, he added.

The recommendations are also finding little support in Edmonton where the
justice minister's steadfast position against pot decriminalization has not
changed.

Decriminalizing marijuana possession, no matter how small, does nothing to
alleviate an over-burdened legal system and sends the wrong message, said
ministry spokesman Bart Johnson.

Atkinson said many people deterred from using pot in the past may try it now.