cannabisnews.com: Debate Lights Up Over Pot Legalization





Debate Lights Up Over Pot Legalization
Posted by CN Staff on November 21, 2002 at 19:12:54 PT
By Sarah Elizabeth Brown
Source: Whitehorse Star 
“Hi. My name is Dennis and I smoke marijuana.” The admissions were as thick as the pot smoke in a Cheech and Chong flick at last night’s debate on the decriminalization of marijuana, though the agreement on what should happen with the plant’s legal status wasn’t as strong.Some disagreed about whether marijuana is even a drug as a couple argued it’s simply an herb. Others disagreed about it being labelled a “gateway drug” while others said they thought it leads to harder drug use.
Several people on the panel and in the audience admitted to doing more than just inhaling — everything from growing marijuana, to selling it and other drugs to crimes committed in search of drugs — regardless of one of Whitehorse’s most recognizable, though out-of-uniform, Mounties lounging on a table in the back of the room.The public debate, attended by about 30 people, was held as part of National Addictions Awareness Week.Dennis, a 42-year-old who said he’s been smoking weed for 26 years, argued it’s no longer acceptable for pot smokers to run the risk every day of having their lives interrupted by Draconian laws put in place in the early 20th century — laws that simply don’t reflect life today, he said.In early September, a Canadian Senate report argued for legalizing marijuana use for people over the age of 16, arguing that marijuana was not a so-called gateway drug – one that leads to the use of stronger narcotics — and is less dangerous than alcohol. More than 20,000 people a year are arrested for using marijuana in Canada, but the committee said the continued illegality of the drug was having no effect at all.Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said last July he was considering whether to decriminalize marijuana, but the Senate’s special committee on illegal drugs urged him to go much further.Decriminalization for possession of marijuana would mean anyone caught with it would receive a fine much like a traffic ticket, and wouldn’t get a criminal record. Instead, the Senate panel suggested Parliament legalize marijuana and regulate and sell it much like alcohol.Debate panel member Mike Cozens, a local defence lawyer about to switch to the Crown prosecution side in the New Year, said he agreed with the Senate report that merely decriminalizing marijuana deprives the government of the ability to regulate and tax it.By decriminalizing but keeping it illegal, we’re telling kids pot’s not that bad, but they’re stealing with the same criminal element to buy, Cozens argued.He said by legalizing marijuana, it could be regulated and taxed, and that money could be used to go after those selling hard drugs.Many in the audience argued marijuana isn’t addictive like alcohol and cigarettes.Cozens argued the “gateway drug” idea is outdated, and that it hasn’t been addressed by strong scientific research. He and others noted, however, that what pot does is pull people wanting to buy it into an illegal subculture.While he said he could see arguments for both sides, the lawyer said Canada needs to come up with a consistent philosophy based on sound research — and stick to it.“I’ve never had to defend clients who’ve beaten the crap out of someone because they were stoned,” said Cozens, noting he’s defended people who’ve done just that when they’d been drinking booze.Several people in the audience questioned why marijuana, which tends to make people mellow and relaxed, was made illegal over alcohol, which is one root of most of the Yukon’s crime.General practitioner Dr. Graham Henderson, who recently finished a six-year stint working at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, said marijuana is on the low end of the scale of legal and illegal drugs in terms of physical harm.“In a nutshell, I don’t think it’s all that harmful,” he said. However, he listed some of the effects of marijuana, which include short-term memory loss — affecting learning — and damage to neuro transmitters in the brain.THC, the active agent in marijuana, attaches itself to fatty tissues in the body, he said, noting it can stay in the brain’s fatty tissues for up to 40 days.The physical fact of smoking pot is quite dangerous though, he said, noting the risk of lung cancer rises for smokers.From what he’s learned, marijuana hasn’t been proved to be addictive, but it’s more likely that some people are just more susceptible.“Addicts are probably born, not made,” he said. “I don’t consider it very high up in the causing-damage department.”He said while he doesn’t believe smoking marijuana is worth a criminal record, leaving it in the decriminalization realm leaves the pushers and violent subculture where it is.Billy Bromell, a panel member and a Yukon College student who argued for making marijuana legal, noted that every society has had drug use and that the 1920s-decision to make it illegal was simply a political one made by the moral majority.“Nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot put in my body,” Bromell said.“People do things to other people’s bodies when they’re on crack cocaine,” replied Cozens. “We don’t want a society where kids think crack cocaine is fine, where kids think smoking marijuana while they’re at school is fine.”Laws are made to define the sort of society we want to create, he said.One woman who said she’s a counsellor with youth vehemently opposed decriminalization or legalization of marijuana after the years of trouble she’s seen her charges get into with the drug. They don’t do as well in school and it affects their relationships with peers, she said.Their still-growing bodies are affected as well, the woman said.The people into legalizing marijuana are doing it for their own self-interest, she said.“It’s for their own personal enjoyment and so they won’t get busted,” she said. “They’re not looking at the greater good.”Even those in the audience who argued for legalizing all drugs, legalizing only marijuana or decriminalizing the drug all agreed it’s not something kids should be using.“It’s a social problem, not a legal problem,” said one young man. “You don’t put people in jail; you educate them. I don’t think, though, you should be smoking pot when you’re 14. You should be out doing stuff, playing sports, learning things.”Matthew Cardinal, a student and recovering cocaine addict who’s used and sold numerous kinds of drugs, said illegal drug traffickers don’t care about drug users’ safety. They’re not prescribing appropriate daily doses — all they care about is money, he said.For sellers, it’s not a movement to smoke pot legally, it’s a movement to make money he said.“There are no rules that actually exist in that subculture.”Source: Whitehorse Star (CN YK)Author: Sarah Elizabeth BrownPublished: November 21, 2002Copyright: 2002 Whitehorse StarContact: letters whitehorsestar.comWebsite: http://www.whitehorsestar.com/Related Articles & Web Site:CannabisNews Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmSenate Report on Cannabis: Get Whole Story http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14319.shtmlLegalize Marijuana, Senate Committee Sayshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13989.shtml The Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13987.shtml 
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on November 23, 2002 at 22:20:20 PT
One Upon a Hippie
Hi Everyone,This is a series about Hippies in the 60s and has many pictures. I thought I'd post all the links so you can read them. It's interesting I believe.http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_1565278,00.htmlhttp://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_1565283,00.htmlhttp://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_1565282,00.htmlhttp://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_1565279,00.htmlhttp://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_1565280,00.html
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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on November 22, 2002 at 03:53:46 PT
Cannabis addiction ?
Put cannabis addiction into perspective for legalization considerations. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/addictiv.htm., indicates caffeine is twice as addictive as cannabis and nicotine is more addictive than heroin. 
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Comment #1 posted by p4me on November 21, 2002 at 21:25:46 PT
Narrowminded people 
The people into legalizing marijuana are doing it for their own self-interest, she said.“It’s for their own personal enjoyment and so they won’t get busted,” she said. “They’re not looking at the greater good.”Naturally people work towards their interest. Why is it this Utopian thinks her Utopia would be installed on the face of the earth in the first place? She does not have a clue that everyone would benefit from MJ legalization because it would make a better world in itself and clear the way for working on fighting the other fascist policies that strap everyone's children with a huge debt,polluted air and water, and broken institutions from the courts to Congress.1
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