CANADA'S BIG DRUG PROBLEM: THE LAW

Due to a local police action last weekend, 56 people who suffer from
apparently incurable diseases, and who have all been given the legal right
to consume marijuana to ease their afflictions, are once again without any
legal source for their medicine.

But heavy-handed though the drug raid may have been, a good case can be
made that the OPP were just doing their job, and that the real culprit is
the bizarrely inadequate framework of Canadian justice regarding
psychoactive substances.

The weekend bust involved Lady Dyz Helping Hands, a Cramahe Township
gardening operation profiled in our October 10 issue. The operation was
above-board, and all those involved had filled out forms in an effort to
comply with new federal provisions for the legal use of medicinal
marijuana. But after the raid, police stated that the 40 pounds of seized
marijuana had a "street value" of $80,000. And even though the herb was
not, by all accounts, destined for "the street," police may have rightly
feared that the presence of such valuable, and easily saleable, substances
in a rural farmhouse could result in a violent break-in.

Of course, there is only one reason that the herb commands an astronomical
price, and only one reason why so much of the supply is distributed by
gun-wielding gangs: because it is illegal. The health problems caused by
marijuana are dwarfed by the crime problem -- the murderous struggles
between rival drug lords, and the thefts and break-ins committed by users
trying to acquire a ridiculously-priced herb. And the crime problem could
be solved with the stroke of a legislative pen, if only Canada's government
had the courage to enact a common-sense solution.

Instead, we have the current well-meaning but ridiculous stopgap measure,
which theoretically makes it possible for desperately ill people to use
marijuana as medicine. The relief remains elusive, because as long as the
drug remains generally illegal, its street price remains sky-high.
Therefore any growing operation will attract the attention of criminals,
and must also attract the attention of police forces.

In the current legal context, with medical marijuana gardens facing such
dangers, police drug squads should be given a special mandate to protect
these operations, rather than seeking out technical excuses to shut them
down. Without such legal protection, the medical marijuana provisions in
Canadian law remain a cruel hoax.