cannabisnews.com: Judy Rebick: Mike's Zero Tolerance!





Judy Rebick: Mike's Zero Tolerance!
Posted by FoM on June 26, 1999 at 08:52:53 PT
Viewpoint by Judy Rebick
Source: CBC News World Online
So Mike Harris has never smoked marijuana. Knock me over with a feather. This is the most shocking revelation since we found out that Bill Clinton actually did have sex with that woman.
If Mike Harris had admitted smoking marijuana in answer to journalists' questions, I would have credited his spin doctors with a strategy to win him votes. If ever there was man who looks like he never tried the evil weed, it's Ontario's Premier. You'd have to be pretty dogmatic to live your youth through the 1960's and never even take a puff. But our Mike is of stern stuff. Reality doesn't interfere with his ideas. Zero tolerance, he cries. Clamp down hard right at the beginning. Throw 'em in jail. That'll stop 'em. Even the Chiefs of Police, never known to be among the bleeding-heart, soft-on-crime crowd, think that simple possession of marijuana should be decriminalized, but not our Mike. The Association of Canadian Police Chiefs favours fines for those convicted of simple marijuana possession. More like a speeding ticket than a break and enter. The police chiefs want to be able to concentrate their resources on investigating more serious crime. Even the right wing Fraser Institute, usually Mike's intellectual inspiration, thinks that it's foolish to crowd the courts with people who are indulging in a drug that has never been proven dangerous and that most agree is less harmful than either cigarettes or alcohol, but not our Mike. Law and order types should be in favour of the decriminalization of pot. When hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Canadians break a law, it puts the administration of justice in just a little ill repute. Of course most of them don't get caught. It's the kids who get caught. Young males who the police are probably rousting for something else get caught with dope. Kids who get a criminal record for doing the same thing many adults do, including probably some of the very cops and Crowns who were involved in their case. What's really crazy is that cannabis arrests have been growing. In 1997 almost 50,000 people were charged with marijuana offenses, up 34 per cent since 1991. More than seven out of ten drug offenses were for marijuana and two thirds of them were for simple possession according to a recent Statistics Canada report. Eighty-six per cent of those arrested for marijuana were under 25. Nine out of ten offenders were male. Yet police claim that marijuana arrests are a low priority. Putting people through criminal court for pot is just plain stupid. It clogs up the courts. It costs a lot of money. It uses up valuable police time. It ruins people's lives. For what reason? Back in 1971, the LeDain Commission recommended the decriminalization of marijuana. No one has come up with a cogent argument against it since. In 1994 during the first season of my old TV show, Face Off, we debated the legalization of marijuana. We got more mail on that show that any one before or since. All of it, every last piece of it, was in favour of the legalization of marijuana. Right-wingers, left-wingers, middle-of-the-roaders all supported at least decriminalization. Now, I know it's not fair to vilify Mike Harris on this. It is after all a federal issue. The Chretien Liberals can't even bring themselves to support the legalization of medical marijuana without the stalling tactic of a medical review. In an October Angus Reid poll, a remarkable 83 per cent of those asked supported the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. There is no question that marijuana is less lethal than hundreds of pharmaceutical drugs that cause horrible side effects and that it helps relieve suffering in everything from MS to cancer. I have a friend with MS who could not have survived the last ten years with out the help of a joint. It is absurd that seriously ill people can get prescriptions for seriously addictive drugs like morphine but have to risk arrest to get marijuana. I would like to take a poll of the federal Liberal caucus and ask how many of them have smoked marijuana. Perhaps the Parliamentary Press Gallery can take the lead from Ontario and ask everyone in Cabinet if they have ever smoked a joint. With the sterling honesty of the Ontario party leaders, we might even find out the truth. "Does it matter?", you may be asking. How many other provisions of the Criminal Code have been broken by the two opposition party leaders in Ontario and, I would guestimate, the majority of the Liberal caucus in Ottawa, at least among those under 55? Somehow I doubt there are too many Mike Harrises out there. Judy Rebick is host of Straight from the Hip - you can e mail her at rebickj toronto.cbc.ca 
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