Reality Check

Marijuana Legalization Is Being Debated in the United States

Some federal politicians in the U.S. seem to be waking up to the fact that their country has, for years incarcerated at least 5 times as many people per capita than the rest of the world. At the same time, the war on drugs has been a dismal failure.  America’s jails are overflowing.

 

When I came across an article by Mindelle Jacobs in the May 12, 2009 edition of the Standard Freeholder, I was astonished by her claim that the tide is changing in the U.S.  and that the liberalization of marijuana laws may be just around the corner. I suspect that Harper’s  Conservatives must be reeling with this news,  getting their spin doctors primed up, while concurrently proposing  amendments in Canada which include a mandatory 6 month jail sentence for growing even one marijuana plant!  Oh, I see. The repressive methods have been a dismal failure in the U.S. but now we’re going to put people in jail here in Canada for holding one pot plant. Unbelievable.

Marijuana Not as Dangerous as Tobacco & Alcohol?

A university professor at Britain's Bristol University has proposed
a new framework for classifying harmful substances, based
on their risks to society.

The risks are based on three factors: the physical harm to the user,
the drug's potential for addiction, and the impact on society.

In the final rankings for drugs with most risks, suprisingly, cannabis came in 11th place,
with tobacco in 9th and alcohol in 5th position.

For the full story, please see Health and Fitness at MSN.

Canadian Students Buying Pot in Schoolyards

I just read Arthur Black’s light-hearted article called “This Country is Going to Pot,” in the Seaway News.

Black reminisces about the history of marijuana in Canada over the past 50 years or so. He’s right about the paranoia that has been perpetuated for so long over the use of pot, including preposterous assertions that pot use causes insanity, devil worship and leads users to outright murder.

This brainwashing worked for a while but now the cat is out of the bag forever. Like alcohol, tobacco and certain prescription drugs, marijuana creates a certain euphoria for the user and over time a dependence can be built up. However, research shows the dependence to be more psychological than physical, unlike the killer dependence of say, heroin or cocaine use.

When school children are smoking up regularly before or at school, we have to recognize the problem for what it is. These children feel such a sense of alienation from society, a sense of not belonging, that they are looking for a mood change and an escape from reality. And the marijuana provides that.

This is not a new phenomenon but it is cause for concern nevertheless. In the 70’s many high school students weaved their way up and down hallways, half stoned and glassy eyed. Unfortunately, regular use of any drug can lead to dependence, and the emotional development of these children is halted. A child using marijuana regularly is on a collision course and intervention is urgently needed.

The same thing could be said with alcohol use. Start feeding alcoholic drinks on a regular basis to a 12-year old, and dependence will eventually set in. However, at least alcohol is regulated which makes it a bit more difficult to obtain. I don’t think alcohol sales are big business in schoolyards.

Canada needs to regulate the use and possession of marijuana, just like it does with alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs. That would take marijuana off the streets, out of the playground, and behind a licensed counter where it can be controlled for quality and price, and the bonus is that government gets to tax it.

What is opening up the debate is that marijuana is finally being recognized for the healing properties it has always had. Marijuana is used to prevent pain, combat Alzheimer’s and reduce nausea in terminally ill patients. These healing properties include relieving stress.

We need to take a look at countries like Holland, which has decriminalized possession and has made marijuana available in the marketplace.

We need a new solution for the 21st century- one that will work. Criminalizing students for smoking pot is not going to get us anywhere, except to tie up the courts and the justice system.

Marijuana, Grow-Ops and Legalization in Canada

A recent report in the Cornwall Standard Freeholder outlined the details of a deadly shooting at a marijuana grow-op in the area.

The gist of the article was that the grow-op industry is booming, producing huge revenues. It is the wealth of this illicit industry that is causing the violent crime. In fact, it is because of the laws that make marijuana illegal, that the prices are high, which causes the black market to flourish which in turn leads to conflict and violence.

In British Columbia where grow-ops are the province’s 3rd largest agricultural producer, the retail street values are a whopping $7 billion per year (Fraser Institute, 2004).

If you would like to have some idea of the result of making marijuana laws more severe in Canada than they are today, you simply have to look at the record of the United States to see the failure over the past 30 years. Prohibition simply doesn’t work, as the States found out in the 1920’s with alcohol. Now they have repeated the error with their drug laws.

Clearly, the war on drugs has been lost, and will never be won using present practices. Today, the majority of well over 2.2 million inmates in the USA are incarcerated because of the war on drugs. The USA has less than 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s 9 million prisoners. The rate of incarceration is over 5 times higher than it was in 1971 when the ‘war on drugs’ was declared.

Despite the huge increase in incarceration, the amount and quality of drugs keeps increasing and are easily available on the street. The Economist (2001) reported that the retail sales in all illegal drugs in the United States were $60 billion! Putting people in jail does not solve the problem, and for the deadly and hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin, treatment and prevention, not punishment is needed.

If we compare Canada and the United States with respect to incarceration, we find a huge gap separating values and treatment of citizens. In 1999, the U.S. incarcerated 715 citizens/100,000 as compared to Canada at 116 citizens/100,000. So, the U.S. imprisons about 6 times as many people as we do here in Canada. The only winner in the American war on drugs has been the prison industry that has been taken over by big business in many cases.

So, I can understand why Canadian judges are unwilling to impose longer sentences on marijuana related offences, with two of the reasons being a shortage of prison space, and the enormous cost of housing such prisoners (+$50,000/year).
However, I can understand the frustration of police officers that are trying to eliminate the criminal networks being spawned by the marijuana grow-ops. It must seem to the police that the courts are not supporting them.

I think the time has come to start thinking differently about marijuana possession, and to come up with some innovative approaches to the use of marijuana in Canada.

We need to stop criminalizing 30,000 Canadians each year for possessing marijuana. Currently, 1.5 million Canadians have criminal records for simple possession. Many people, mostly the younger generation, will have a hard enough time finding employment without being labeled a ‘criminal’ for smoking a marijuana joint. Also, the Canadian government needs to stop wasting millions each year processing marijuana possession offences.

I am reminded of the great Canadian icon, the late Pierre Berton who dispelled many of the myths surrounding the smoking of pot. In an interview several years ago, he candidly admitted smoking marijuana for many years as a writer, and lightheartedly praised his latest book, ‘The National Dream,’ as an excellent rolling surface for those so inclined. Should we seriously be criminalizing people for smoking marijuana?

There are other alternatives. One suggestion is if small amounts of marijuana were legalized for personal use as they are in Holland, the grow operations would begin to decline. If marijuana cultivation for personal use were made legal, the price would hit rock bottom and would sell for the same price as other plants. In Holland, people are allowed to grow their own marijuana plants for individual use, whereas selling and distributing is still against the law.

Stricter laws, longer sentences, more prisons and inmates will burden our society if we follow the path of the Americans. However, I suspect that the grow-ops are here to stay. Such is the case in B.C. where the grow-ops are now out of control.

I would suggest that communities in Canada need to address the marijuana issue, including the police forces, and make recommendations to the federal government to illuminate this important issue.