cannabisnews.com: Canada's Reefer Sanity Canada's Reefer Sanity Posted by CN Staff on May 16, 2003 at 08:14:39 PT By Joan Ryan Source: San Francisco Chronicle Sometime in the near future, if a bill in the Canadian Parliament passes as expected, you won't be arrested any longer in Canada for having a few joints in your pocket or a few cannabis plants in the basement. You'll pay a fine and that's it -- no criminal record to explain to a new employer, no missed mortgage payments while you watch "All My Children" in the prison lounge with guys named Tiny and Red. Canada is about to decriminalize marijuana throughout its provinces. Prime Minister Jean Chretien fully supports the move. Drug arrests, prosecutions and imprisonments cost his country about $400 million a year -- the majority for marijuana possession. The United States, by some estimates, spends $17.5 billion a year policing and prosecuting drug users and dealers. "It's not only the cost of locking these nonviolent offenders in jail, but the cost of their lost labor," said Jacob Sullum, author of a new book titled "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use." Pot smokers who are behind bars are not out in the workforce supporting their families or paying taxes. Instead, they're draining tax money to the tune of about $150 a day in some prisons. I am not a marijuana imbiber myself but, really, enough already with the Reefer Madness hysteria that continues to undergird our drug policies. It flies in the face of 40 years of research. The nonprofit Rand Drug Policy Research Center is the latest to present findings that disprove the much-cited theory that marijuana leads to harder drugs. Yet we spend dwindling public resources locking people up for smoking pot. Worse, we're spending dwindling resources locking people up for selling pipes and bongs! In late February, 55 people in 10 states were arrested and charged in a nationwide crackdown on the sale of drug-related paraphernalia. Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Joan RyanPublished: Friday, May 16, 2003 Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - Page A - 27 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/sanity.htm Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmWhat Are You Smoking, Canada?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16311.shtmlLighter Penalties for Minors in Pot Bill http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16309.shtmlNew Pot Plan Just Token Effort http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16308.shtmlStop The Reefer Madness http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16301.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by FoM on May 16, 2003 at 16:26:43 PT Not the Best Way To Make Policy Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen Friday, May 16, 2003 It's a self-defeating pattern that the braintrust around the prime minister can't seem to shake. The Liberals come up with a progressive, potentially attractive piece of legislation, then proceed to undermine their own initiative with disorganized staging, lack of consultation and conflicting signals from cabinet ministers.The gun registry is the most fully developed example of this tendency. A welcome attempt to curb gun violence in Canadian cities, that had broad support from women's groups, police and municipal leaders, has turned into a memorable example of bureaucratic waste and buck-passing. This wasn't entirely the fault of a handful of political insiders around the prime minister; it took several hands to create a bungle this far-reaching. Still, it is the all-too-typical result of the Chrétien management style.This week, a laudable attempt to decriminalize simple possession of marijuana is imperilled for the same reasons. The government clearly learned something from the Iraq fiasco: it dispatched Justice Minister Martin Cauchon to Washington to run details of the pot bill past wary Americans. This earned Cauchon testy rebukes from some Liberal MPs, who felt they should have been consulted first (but, on any other day, would be blasting their government for not consulting the U.S.).Snipped:Complete Article: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.asp?id=28CC3DC9-4223-461D-8688-50FA3A44EA2D [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on May 16, 2003 at 16:22:16 PT Related Article from Snipped Source Marijuana Advocates Wary of Ottawa's Move To DecriminalizePolice more likely to hand out tickets than they are to press charges if move goes ahead, opponents say. Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun Friday, May 16, 2003 Ottawa's plan to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana could wind up being bad news for Lower Mainland pot smokers.Abbotsford lawyer John Conroy and others say the proposal to make possession of 15 grams or less an offence punishable by just a ticket and a small fine could make it easier for police to crack down on users in a region where criminal convictions for marijuana possession are increasingly rare."It will make things worse rather than better," said Conroy, who specializes in marijuana cases. "We're better off to stay the same than to do this. It may well be better for people in provinces other than B.C., where people are treated more harshly. But we're in a bit of a cocoon here." Snipped:Complete Article: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/news/story.asp?id=16B4FE4B-08B3-4286-B01B-8D4DB7E22984 [ Post Comment ] Post Comment