August 15, 2000
Kamloops Daily News


Government inaction is required to solve this problem. 
That's right, I said inaction.  If the federal government
does nothing in the next 12 months, marijuana possession
will no longer be illegal in Ontario. The Ontario Court of
Appeal recently ruled that Canada's laws prohibiting
marijuana are unconstitutional because they prevent the
medicinal use of the drug.

According to law professor Alan Young, marijuana possession
could become legal by default -- as did abortions when the
Supreme Court of Canada struck down laws that criminalized
them. The Government of Canada did nothing and abortions
became legal.  If marijuana possession is decriminalized in
Ontario, it would be only a matter of time until other
provinces follow. 

Let me clarify a few things at the start.  The motives of
those seeking decriminalization of marijuana are always
suspect.  Advocates are often suspected of trying to
justifying their own habits (I am not a marijuana user). 
Or, they must be trying to push a debauched  lifestyle (I
live a sedate, conservative lifestyle).  Must be promoting
politics (well, got me there, although I am not a member
of any political party).

Another charge is that marijuana advocates are trying to
corrupt our youth.  As a father, I take this allegation
seriously.  I am not in favour of the recreational use of
drugs by teenagers.  But there has to be a better way to
control drug abuse.  Marijuana prohibition has failed
miserably.  More than one-half of Canadians have tried
marijuana, and approximately one-quarter use it regularly. 

Prohibition creates an aura of "forbidden fruit".  As the
Bible teaches us, when a fruit is within reach, and we are
told not to eat it, it gains an irresistible mystique. It
didn't work for alcohol, it won't work for marijuana.

The non-medical use of marijuana is a public health issue.
Its use can be controlled more effectively through
education, similar to the way that advertising campaigns
have reduced the consumption of tobacco.   

There is another aspect of Canada's marijuana laws that galls 
me.   Marijuana was only criminalized in Canada as a result 
of puritanical fervour in the United States.  

Lurid rumours of the effects of marijuana use were imported
by Canadian  Emily Murphy.  In her book, The Black Candle,
she quoted a Los Angles police chief as saying that
marijuana use drives peoples "completely insane".  For good
measure, she added "death and abandonment" as effects.

In 1923, the Minister of Health rose in parliament to say
that "another drug has been added to the schedule" of the
Narcotics Control Act.  Marijuana was not mentioned by name. 
No debate took place about the merits of criminalizing a
plant that had potential medical applications.  No mention
was made about the devastating effect that it had on the
growing of hemp -- useful for the production of everything
from clothing to paper and seed oil. 

With one casual act of parliament, based on an American
delusion, a whole potential industry was criminalized.  In a
strange twist, the agency responsible for the enforcement of
American drug laws, the Drug Enforcement Agency,
acknowledged in 1988 that marijuana is "one of the safest
therapeutic substances".

Canadians keep feeding American paranoia.  Americans look
over their shoulder, and we flinch.  Most recently, arrests
for marijuana cultivation in B.C. have increased because of
complaints from south of the boarder about exportation of
our high grade marijuana.  Americans are setting up a
high-tech surveillance system along sections of the B.C.-U.S.
boarder, complete with night cameras and motion detectors to
stem the flow of drugs and contraband.

The war on drugs in the US has been a war against its own
citizens, especially visible minorities and the poor, who
have little resources to defend themselves.  Paranoia has
reached a high level in politics with the selection of Pat
Buchanan as presidential hopeful by a segment of the Reform
Party of America.

Buchanan wants to erect a wall, similar to the famous Great
Wall of China, along the Canada-U.S. boarder to keep the
potent weed and alien hordes out.  Millions of Americans
will vote for this man.  Its time we stopped scratching
every time Americans get an itch.  Subservience is not
getting us anywhere.

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