cannabisnews.com: For Sensible Marijuana Policy, Go North










  For Sensible Marijuana Policy, Go North

Posted by CN Staff on May 08, 2003 at 07:44:18 PT
Commentary By Steve Chapman 
Source: Creators Syndicate  

Among American officeholders, there are two points of view about the drug war. Some are for it, while others are really, really for it. In Canada, though, Prime Minister Jean Chretien has said something no American politician would ever say: Marijuana users should no longer be treated like criminals. Given Canada's opposition to American policy on Iraq, you may wonder why those puzzling people up north are so out of step on everything. Maybe there's a reason they put the loon on their coins. 
Actually, the drug war has some things in common with the Iraq war: The United States has found itself without many allies, facing vocal disagreement in many countries. The big difference is that we don't have a prayer of winning the war against drugs. The Bush administration is clearly unhappy about the Canadians' habit of thinking for themselves. John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, expressed deep disappointment: "You expect your friends to stop the movement of poison to your neighborhood." He may be forgetting that the Canadian government controls only its own neighborhood -- unlike the U.S. government, which aspires to rule a lot of the world beyond its borders. U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that decriminalization might force American customs agents to spend more time checking out Canadians entering the U.S. Well, of course. I mean, our law enforcement officers have never had to worry about people smuggling pot into the country before, have they?But decriminalization in Canada wouldn't have much effect on drug use in America. How do I know? Because decriminalization in America hasn't had much effect on drug use in America. Yes, it has been tried here -- and not, as you might expect, in just a few locales that are still stuck in the '60s. According to The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 13 states no longer make a habit of putting people in jail for smoking a joint, including such funky places as Nebraska and Mississippi. What happens when a state decriminalizes marijuana? People immediately seize the opportunity to go on behaving exactly as they had behaved before. A 1999 study commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences found that marijuana use in states that relaxed their laws was no different from states that didn't.The Netherlands has gone further still. Though cannabis is technically against the law, the government allows it to be openly sold and consumed. In their 2001 book "Drug War Heresies," Robert MacCoun of the University of California at Berkeley and Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland noted that by effectively legalizing pot, "the Dutch have significantly reduced the monetary and human costs of incarcerating cannabis offenders with no apparent effects on levels of use." If you looked at just the comparative popularity of marijuana, you might assume we were the ones with the permissive laws. Dutch teenagers are less likely to smoke pot than American kids. In fact, a survey of teens in 30 European countries found that all of them have lower rates of cannabis use than we do. Conservatives often warn about the unintended consequences of liberal schemes, but they haven't noticed that our pot laws seem to be fostering drug use instead of preventing it.Maybe the Canadians understand that. Or maybe they're just quicker to recognize the stupidity of giving someone a criminal record for doing something that an awful lot of people have done without hurting anyone else. Nearly 80 million Americans have tried marijuana -- including the last president of the United States and, apparently, the current one, who doesn't deny youthful drug use. Only the unlucky ones get collared.But their numbers are still pretty big. More than 600,000 people are arrested each year in this country for possession of small amounts of cannabis. Arresting people to protect them from the effects of marijuana is like imprisoning William Bennett to keep him from squandering money on the slots.For that matter, the dangers of pot are mostly imaginary. The respected medical journal The Lancet concluded a few years ago, "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health." Not all experts are quite so sanguine, especially when adolescents are involved, but the health hazards of getting arrested are clearly much greater than the health hazards of getting high.Everyone knows that marijuana is not a menace to public health or morals. The marvel is not that Canadians may finally act on that knowledge, but that Americans still tolerate the waste of police time and tax money arresting people for an innocent vice. What are we smoking?Stephen Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune. His twice-weekly column on national and international affairs appears in some 60 papers across the country.Source: Creators Syndicate Author: Stephen ChapmanPublished: May 8, 2003Copyright: 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.Contact: info creators.com Website: http://www.creators.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmU.S., Canada Clash on Pot Laws http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16221.shtmlUS Says Canada Cares Too Much About Liberties http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16130.shtml Senate Report on Cannabis: Get Whole Story http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14319.shtml 

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Comment #12 posted by FoM on May 08, 2003 at 19:56:10 PT
freedom fighter
I didn't know that about Texas. This happened in a southern state but I don't remember which one. We were hassled by weigh stations but never searched. You do your best to go around weigh stations but some places there just isn't anyway around. We had to go into an inspection facility at Donner Pass. I remember the inspector opened our trailer and said get those tiny atomic bombs out of here! I knew we were hauling something very toxic but I didn't think it was like tiny atomic bombs! LOL! When we got to our destination in San Francisco we were ushered to a room where the walls were lined with hazardous gear and it said if an alarm went off to put on the gear! All that for 80 cents a mile! Skull and Crossbones plastered all over the trailer and all! 
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Comment #11 posted by freedom fighter on May 08, 2003 at 19:11:48 PT
FoM
thank god it did'nt happened in Texas.. If you kill a police drug dog in Texas, it is possible to get a death penalty in that state.Johnny is not going to get his wish, I mean he might try to tighten the border but he's got a problem. It's called "Time" and "Patience". Pot"heads" got all the time and patience to figure how to move 100 pounds from one point to another. At the same time, a smart pothead would grow more in their own neighborhood. You see, 200 pounds is more than 100 pounds. Johnny is not going to have time or patience when he tries to tighten the border. It is because Americans are not going to put up with this very long.So, Johnny, it is a checkmate! pazff
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Comment #10 posted by ekim on May 08, 2003 at 18:24:00 PT
6,500 charged with simple possession
in a story today in the Kal Gazette. 5-8-3 by the Ass. Press they said that Drivers head to Detroit to buy drugs with penalties. Last year police seized 1,423 vehicles in Detroit drug arrests. Nearly 60 % of those vehicles or 842 belonged to non-detroiters. In 2001 with 62 % of the 2,160 seized cars belonging to people outside of Detroit. 
 Maurice Morton chief of special ops in the Wayne County Prosecutors office said fewer then half of the 6,500 people charged with simple drug possession in 2000 and 2001 were from Detroit. The majority about 60% lived outside the city.
 Detroit police Inspector James Moore who is in charge of the narcotics ne section says suburbanites come to the city because they know the chances of going to jail if they get caught are slim
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Comment #9 posted by Lehder on May 08, 2003 at 12:30:54 PT
take the money away
Cops get their money from theft, forfeiture...and local tax levies that people must vote for. Without the votes, they don't get the money. In the Cleveland Plain Dealer, I read two stories earlier this week, one about Parma and one about Strongsville. Both towns, by voting against tax levies for police, have reduced the police budgets. The story about Parma said that 15% of the cops would have to be laid off. (Let's hoppe that without their little hats on they also have their cars trashed.)So - always vote in the local elections. I check NO for everything except the library, and with their attitude recently, I may have to reconsider them too. Often, these elections are held when there are no major political offices being contested - so turnout is low and your vote against the police is all the more effective.That's what we have to do:
1) take the money away
2) gain access to televisionP.S. I would not pay for the Plain Dealer, another controlled media outlet. I picked it up, a day old, in a cheap restaurant where I ate lightly. In earlier times I would occasionally buy a paper from the outdoor boxes. Considerate of the next person, I often stuck a paper between the door and the box, keeping it open for a two-for-one sale. Take the money away.
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Comment #8 posted by Doobinie on May 08, 2003 at 12:28:13 PT
Just for the record...
A Border Arse is a Border Arse, whether Canadian or American. One time, my girlfriend (now my wife), a friend of hers, my brother and I were returning to Canada from a Cornerstone Festival, a christian music festival in Bushnell, Illinois (good times). Now, granted we were four young people (two long haired, hairy boys) trying to cross the border in my orange 1974 VW camper, but only two of us had ever tried drugs, and none of us were users at the time. They didn't tear the vehicle apart, but they delayed and tried to intimidate us with their unchecked power. They threatened a strip search, which my brother and I found funny ("Hey, if you want to see me naked, it's your sleep that will suffer, not mine"), but the girls did not. It never happened, but they were arses. Wait a second, I want to revise my first statement. I guess the American border guards (in this context) are bigger arses. I guess I wanted to say that Canadians can be arses too.Love and Peace,Doobinie
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on May 08, 2003 at 09:56:04 PT

phil
I'll tell you a story too. I went with my husband from coast to coast in a semi for over 2 years. We were never searched but hassled at inspection centers. This is a story that a man told me while we were on the road. We had our Rott with us and that got us talking. He said he had a doberman that rode with him. She was very protective like our dog was. He had a beware of dog sign in his truck's window. He was stopped and they wanted to search his truck for drugs. He said my dog is in the bunk and I must get him first. They said no that if he reached back into the bunk he could be trying to hide drugs. He tried to tell them no please trust me. They didn't and sent the police dog up into the truck and the doberman killed the police dog. Broke his neck just that fast. They arrested him, (no drugs either) took his dog and it cost him over $3,500 to get his dog back because of lawyers fees. They wanted his dog destroyed and he knew that his dog was only protecting him so he couldn't let it happen.
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Comment #6 posted by phil_debowl on May 08, 2003 at 09:33:32 PT

speaking of searches
I can relate, the only time I ever let a cop search my car i was moving from tx back to atlanta. My car was trashed, i had moved out to texas about 7 years ago with a company that went bankrupt the 4th month i was there, and i thought it would be fun to watch em go through my piles of trash and clothes, and i had been driving for like 10 hours and didn't feel like going through a couple of hours of mind games. They, too, destroyed my vehicle in like an hours time. Just the damage caused to my car was reason enough to never submit to a search again. And where was i to get re-embersment? Since then, no matter what, it's well worth the mind games to in the end, win.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on May 08, 2003 at 09:13:00 PT

Truth
That is terrible! Aren't they responsible for damages to your motor home? We had a motor home for years and we loved it and it makes me angry to think that anyone would have torn it up. Welcome home from us here who understand.
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Comment #4 posted by Truth on May 08, 2003 at 09:02:56 PT

Canada vs. U.S.
My wife and I just took a trip to Vancouver. On the way in we were greeted by men in suits, on the way back home we were greeted by federal agents in bulletproof vests that spent 2 hours tearing apart our motorhome. They didn't find anything but they left damage from end to end, welcome home to the land of the free.
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Comment #3 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on May 08, 2003 at 08:21:07 PT:

POT LAWS SUPPORT FEDERAL CORRUPTION
The Cannabis laws support federal corruption. The United States Central Intelligence Agency launders over $200 billion per year of drug money thru Wall Street, with impunity, www.copvcia.com, while the government punishes otherwise law abiding Americans for small amounts of Cannabis. This is an awful hypocrisy which should be brought out to everyone. Unfortunately, government school curriculums are not teaching the required information, especially the dark side of government. www.johntaylorgatto.com. 
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Comment #2 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on May 08, 2003 at 08:17:10 PT:

HISTORY OF UNITED STATES POT LAWS
We must consider the history of the Cannabis laws in the United States, as described in the Web article entitled SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA, www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on May 08, 2003 at 07:48:09 PT

Very Good Article
Once again Steve Chapman does a fine job of telling it like it is!
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