cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Madness Prevails in Governments Approach





Marijuana Madness Prevails in Governments Approach
Posted by CN Staff on April 28, 2003 at 09:23:46 PT
By Bill Kaufmann -- Calgary Sun
Source: Calgary Sun
In 1972, the drug-addled Rolling Stones were still considered a threat to society as they barnstormed across North America. That same year, Jean Chretien was Indian Affairs minister in a Trudeau government toying with the idea of decriminalizing marijuana, but begged off over fears of angering the U.S. The LeDain Commission had called for decriminalizing personal cannabis use, a recommendation ultimately ignored.
Fast-forward 31 years and some things remain frozen in time, others do not. A government headed by the same Chretien is said to be readying legislation that would eliminate criminal penalties for possessing small quantities of cannabis. But what ultimately emerges could be coloured by those enduring concerns over a possible backlash from a country that eagerly imprisons for life growers of a drug casually and unobtrusively consumed by many. A common sense law enshrining civil liberties and the concept of personal control over one's body will be under siege by the land of the brave and home of the free. We're to bow to the advice of a nation that incarcerates more people for drug offences -- nearly half a million -- than Europe imprisons for all infractions. By contrast, Canada's courts, time and again in recent months, have seen the nation's current prohibition law for what it is -- irrelevant and unjust. Decriminalization, we're still told, will lead us down the slippery slope to a holocaust of substance abuse. The truth is, prohibition has never been a powerful deterrent to the use of cannabis. Those choosing not to partake do so on a more personal basis, whether over health concerns or a preference for beer. People will either smoke it or they won't and even a widely-perceived greater societal acceptance of cannabis -- largely through advocacy for its medical use -- hasn't led to an increase in consumption. Then there's the contention decriminalization will be introducing a new wrinkle into the substance abuse pantheon. Sorry to break the obvious news, but that reality has existed for quite some time now; cannabis use has been present in virtually every socio-economic group for years. If a recent poll commissioned by Sun Media is to be believed, 58% of Canadians are now convinced the actual legalization of the substance won't lead to more widespread use of hard drugs. It's a telling statistic confronting a powerful myth critical to maintaining the legal status quo. Study after study in recent years has debunked the charge; tolerance for marijuana use in the Netherlands has been accompanied by a noticeable retreat in hard drug consumption there. And it's interesting to note marijuana use among young adolescents in the Netherlands is lower than in the U.S. Tobacco and alcohol -- both unlike marijuana, actually toxic -- are more likely "gateway" drugs. As for impaired driving, getting behind the wheel under the influence of any mind-altering drug is never a good idea, but research has shown cannabis to be far less dangerous than alcohol. The Sun poll also found only 14% of Canadians insist marijuana should always be illegal, while 40% believe it should be either legalized or decriminalized for recreational use. And 43% believe it should be legalized for medical purposes. Those results are even more significant, considering 56% of those same Canadians insist they've never smoked the herb. A massive, costly and destructive law enforcement industry has grown addicted to a drug that won't go away. What's worse, the obsession with the impossible task of stamping out the use of marijuana is sweeping up medicinal users into its dragnet. We're faced with the outrageous and ridiculous scenes of police officers and prosecutors hounding the sick because they seek relief from a plant. It's time to take a different approach by lessening our dependence on law enforcement by leaning more on harm reduction through education, treatment and prevention. The government's inept approach to regulating marijuana so far is reflected in its attempts to grow the drug for experimental medical purposes. To no one's surprise, it's been plagued with incompetence. Complete Title: Dopey Situation: Marijuana Madness Prevails in Government's Inept ApproachSource: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)Author: Bill Kaufmann -- Calgary SunPublished: April 28, 2003 Copyright: 2003 The Calgary SunContact: callet sunpub.comWebsite: http://www.fyicalgary.com/calsun.shtmlRelated Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmDutch Treat - Winnipeg Sun http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16086.shtml'Born in Hysteria' - London Free Press http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16073.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by freedom fighter on April 28, 2003 at 19:04:25 PT
Greenfox
Sorry about your friends.. I hope they get out soon.. Keep buggin these drones until they are out.. Man, it really sucks.. I wondered how many are being held this way now????sigh!pazff 
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Comment #5 posted by greenfox on April 28, 2003 at 18:38:56 PT
Cannabis Prohibition
Is a fraud and as our "good friend" Rush says, the philosophy is morally bankrupt. Throughout history, people have traded “security” for their “freedoms,” and as our great leaders have said, this will rob us of both. In any event, the Bush administration is doing just that: taking our fears of terr-ah and using them against us to steel our freedom. Just now, I have a friend being held in jail on “suspicion of drug crimes”. These bastards have held my friend for OVER 72 hours without EVER CHARGING HIM WITH A CRIME. It is going on day four, and both he and his wife are still there. Initially, when they were taken to jail, I called them and was told that they couldn’t be held for more than seventy-two hours without being charged with a crime. Today, I called back and learned that because of recent political hysteria made into the sham of a law, the “patriot act,” they can be held for LONGER if an extension is filed on the part of the DA. Sure enough, this was filed and to this very moment I cannot bail them out. These are decent upstanding people that were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The point being, I am not able to even SEE them, let along bring them cigarettes. When I call the jail asking for information, the fumbling idiots who call themselves federal and state employees have done everything from placing me on hold forever to simply hanging up the phone and leaving it off the hook. It has been a trying four days, (more trying for my two unlucky friends, to be sure,) and still I cannot bail them out. Because they can’t be bailed out until they’ve been charged with a crime, on the circus clown courts go, meanwhile the people that need him back at home can’t even visit him. So the point, you ask? The point is: do we TRULY live in the land of the free, the home of the brave? When brevity is determined by the size of one’s metaphorical penis and women’s rights are simply ho-hum and talk, and when freedom is determined on your ability to “rat out” your neighbors in true Orwellian style, one must wonder how free we actually are. Television and anti-drug propaganda are one in the same, (and we have the audacity to laugh and laud Iraqi propaganda television for being a tool of the government?) and both television programming and advertisements appeal to the lowest common denominator. People are no longer interested in their rights; only in how drunk they can get on a Friday night, and how much money they can earn from their lemming job, and of course weather or not “they” can sexually gratify “themselves”. It’s no wonder that Europe finds this country not only laughable, but a pathetic fetal attempt at democracy. I have seen the glory of the Netherlands as the uncaring Dutch passively watch me smoke their products and contribute to their economy. It’s a wonder, they think to themselves silently, that their entire country is doing so well just because Americans can’t spend their money at home on the simplest of pleasures: cannabis. 
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on April 28, 2003 at 17:16:39 PT
afterburner
Good to see you and thanks for telling us about how the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. I'm not serious now but what if smoking and growing all took place in a person's bedroom? That would work. No it wouldn't but that's what came to my mind. I believe in freedom but I also know that I don't have a right to abuse freedom. I have no right to impose my views on another and no one should be allowed to impose their views upon me. We have laws that are made to protect us from ourselves but only when the powers that be think it's right. There are dangerous sports but people aren't stopped from participating in one of those sports. I don't know how we got here from there but it's a sad state of affairs. I know how we got here from there and it wasn't because of concern for our health and well being. It was to control people particularly minorities. That is wrong from any angle. I believe that we need to have a government because some people would just go off the deep end. Laws are made because some people won't use common sense and practice self control. If we can show them that the world won't become one big pot party they must listen. I believe that legalization of Cannabis will decrease use because it would be legal and not as interesting. Making something like Cannabis illegal promotes it's use just because of the natural rebellion that occurs when we are growing up. 
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Comment #3 posted by afterburner on April 28, 2003 at 16:52:51 PT:
druid and FoM.
Pierre Eliot Trudeau when he was the Canadian Prime Minister said, "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." Unfortunately he dropped the ball when it came to cannabis, despite the LeDain Commission Report. His Indian Affairs Minister, now Prime Minister Jean Cretien seems poised to at least partially correct that oversight. Abraham Lincoln was right: look what a mess cannabis prohibition has made of the USA, the "land of the free," and the Constitution.ego transcendence follows ego destruction, and suddenly there is no question.
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on April 28, 2003 at 10:23:26 PT
druid
I'm going to do my best to tell you my opinion on crimes that are based on a law to control the behavior of people.We saw in Iraq after the bombing stopped that anarchy took over because there was no one in charge. That's the fear society has. That will not happen when the so called crimes are victimless. Consenting adults should have a right to decide their own life style and the government shouldn't tell them how to live. I am against abortion but that is my personal belief. I don't feel I have a right to tell another woman what to do though. That's personal and whatever she decides she will live with the consequences of her action. Children should be raised with strong moral convictions but strong moral convictions mean teaching them to be tolerant of others, to help others, to work hard at achieving a successful life and that will be very different for each young person based on family background, where you live and the families economic situation.If what I do as an adult hurts no one but me then there shouldn't be a law against it. They say that drug use hurts families so we need laws against drug use but why can't each family take care of their own issues? Families have alcoholics and they deal with that issue why not with Cannabis?We need to stop telling each other as a society how to live unless we hurt others by our actions. That's a free society. That's a society where we believe good will prevail. Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. PresidentSpeech, 18 Dec. 1840Illinois House of Representatives "Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance.It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes 
beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control 
a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." 
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Comment #1 posted by druid on April 28, 2003 at 09:58:33 PT
General Question to the Legal Experts
Right to Privacy=Right to Grow Cannabis?Ok I was listening to Rush Limbaugh( I know I know he is a conservative, egotistcal arse but I like to hear both side of all issues) and he was talking about a supreme court hearing involving a homosexual couple in Texas.A little background on this particular case. Two men were caught in the act of anal sodomy. This is illegal under Texas Law. The sodomy statute, Texas Penal Code § 21.06, prohibits "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex. They were fined $200 plus court costs and now contend that the sodomy statute violates the United States Constitution. The Texas courts rejected their challenge and upheld the convictions, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case."So anyway as things have progressed, there has been a little misreporting on the issue. Currently Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) has been undrfire due to the fact that an AP reporter inserted the word "gay" into a quote he made.Lara Jakes Jordan—wife of Sen. John Kerry’s (D.-Mass.) presidential campaign manager and former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official Jim Jordan—added the word “gay” in parentheses to a statement Santorum made during an hour-long interview. Santorum in fact was accurately reflecting the very question that homosexual groups have put to the Court.In her AP report, Jordan quoted Santorum as follows: “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”But Santorum had not used the word “gay,” according to a transcript of the interview later released by AP. Jordan did not reply to messages left by Human Events on her mobile and office telephones.Ok so anyway it's been a big mess. So anyway you folks are probably thinking what does this have to do with cannabis?I'll tell you and this is what gotten me excited about this court case. Just listen to what Sen. Santorum said again about this particular case. "“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”This is where Rush Limbaugh comes into the picture. He brought up the point that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of this and upholds the right to privacy behind closed doors in your own home then anything that is Consenual( you can be consenual by yourself you just have to agree with what you are doing) can not be illegal. So you see what I am saying now? This could have implications far beyond the what happens in the bedroom like the state not being able to regulate same sex marriages, polygamy or incest as long as it was consensual between adults. This also could mean that ANYTHING else like GROWING OR USING CANNABIS would also have to be permitted in the privacy of your own home behind closed doors if it was consensual.Am I just thinking screwed up on this or does anyone else see the logic and implications behind this case?
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