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Legalization can no longer be snickered away
Publication date: Thursday, September 5, 2002
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002, The Ottawa Citizen
Contact: letters@thecitizen.southam.ca
Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
Author: Dan Gardner
Legalization can no longer be snickered away
It is rational, rigorous, comprehensive, lucid, thoughtful and
scientifically sound. And unless there are cabinet ministers with more
vision and courage than their predecessors, the Senate's magnificent report
on marijuana will quickly disappear into the Parliamentary Library and be
forgotten.
I wish I were more optimistic. I wish I could believe that the four-volume,
650-page report -- the product of 39 meetings with 234 witnesses in eight
cities -- might have lasting effect.
I wish I could believe federal ministers will sit down and really read it,
consider its evidence and arguments, and act on their judgment about what's
best for Canada.
But I can't believe any of that. I know too much history.
And it's to history we have to turn first to really understand just how
important the Senate's brave report is, and why it would be a tragedy if it
is indeed ignored.
Canada first banned marijuana in 1923, as the Senate report reminds those
who bother to read it. Why? Was Canadian society being devastated by legal
marijuana? Not at all. In fact, marijuana scarcely existed in Canada -- its
first appearance in the nation's capital wasn't until 1932.
But there were silly, absurd tales about marijuana emanating from the United
States. A journalist named Emily Murphy (yes, the same one with a statue on
Parliament Hill) used these to whip up Canadian fears of this non-existent
drug.
Users "become raving maniacs," Ms. Murphy wrote in 1922, "and are liable to
kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons using the most
savage methods of cruelty."
A year later, a clerk added marijuana to a draft list of banned substances.
Parliament passed the list without comment, and thus was marijuana banned
without a word of discussion. The story was similar elsewhere. In Britain,
marijuana was slipped onto a list of banned substances that got five
minutes' debate in Parliament before being passed; marijuana was never
mentioned.
In the United States, the federal government followed many states and banned
marijuana in 1937. A Congressional committee started the process after being
told by the head of the narcotics police that marijuana literally turned
users into axe-murderers. When the committee took its bill banning marijuana
to Congress, the committee chair assured members "there is no controversy
about it." When someone was so impertinent as to ask what the bill was
about, the chair replied: "It has something to do with something that is
called marijuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind."
Seven days after the federal ban came into force, the first conviction was
registered. A 58-year-old man was sentenced to four years in Leavenworth.
"Marijuana destroys life itself," the presiding judge declared.
Not all officials efforts to deal with marijuana have been so riddled with
ignorance and prejudice. Over the decades, literally dozens of inquiries
have looked into marijuana use, its effects, and how public policy should
deal with it.
The first was a British commission created in 1893 to look at marijuana in
India, where the plant is indigenous and its use widespread. "On the whole,"
the committee concluded after years of study, "the weight of evidence is to
the effect that moderation in the use of hemp drugs is not injurious."
The language may be a little archaic, but that sentence wouldn't look out of
place in yesterday's Senate report.
In fact, virtually every serious study of marijuana, its effect and public
policy has concluded that the scary stories of drug cops are nonsense and
that punishments should be eased, to one degree or another. There was a
major study in 1969. Another in 1970. Two in 1972. One in 1977, and 1982,
1994 and 1995. Britain has done two studies. So have Australia, the United
States, Holland and now Canada. And these are just the major inquiries.
All these studies recommended either that marijuana use be
"decriminalized" -- meaning punishable only be a modest fine, like a parking
ticket -- or that it should be a legalized entirely. A few also supported
some system of legal sales of marijuana.
Nor can all this research and study be written off as the work of flower
children. Some of the top names in law, medicine and academia can be found
on these reports. So can the names of some very tough-minded conservatives.
Consider the 1972 report of the Shafer committee in the United States. Its
unanimous conclusion: "Marijuana use is not such a grave problem that
individuals who smoke marijuana, and possess it for that purpose, should be
subject to criminal prosecution." The chair of the committee was Raymond
Shafer, a retired Republican governor and renowned drug hawk. Richard Nixon
personally selected Mr. Shafer and filled the committee with other
rock-ribbed Republicans, in the expectation that the report would slam the
hippies and cheer on Nixon's "war on drugs."
Nixon, of course, dismissed the Shafer report without even reading it.
Legalization, Nixon believed, was something being pushed by "Jews" and he
would have none of it.
Probably the most famous report on marijuana, and other drugs, is that of
Canada's Le Dain commission, a huge undertaking that involved four years of
intense research. Many academics still consider it the best of the lot. In
the end, the Le Dain commission recommended legalizing personal possession
and use of marijuana, but not its sale and production. One member dissented
and called for mere "decriminalization" of possession. Another, the
criminologist Marie-Andrée Bertrand, also dissented and recommended not only
the legalization of possession, but also a controlled system of legal
production and distribution.
Some of the Le Dain recommendations were announced with great fanfare in
1972. The government of Pierre Trudeau responded in the House with a promise
to at least abolish imprisonment for possession. Of course, Trudeau did not
keep his word. Today, as always, marijuana possession is punishable by up to
seven years in prison.
This is why I remain so pessimistic about the Senate report's prospects. Le
Dain carefully gathered the facts. Le Dain calmly and rationally
demonstrated that the status quo is a terrible mistake. Le Dain made modest,
practical suggestions for reform.
And Pierre Trudeau blew it all off just as abruptly as Dick Nixon.
Can we expect more from Jean Chrétien than Pierre Trudeau? How about Paul
Martin and the other leadership hopefuls? Or Justice Minister Martin
Cauchon, who made a few cryptic comments about decriminalization this
summer? Forgive my doubts, but the century-long record of politicians on
this issue gives little reason for hope.
Still, there is one very welcome effect the Senate report is bound to have:
Legalization can no longer be snickered away -- or, worse, ignored. When Mr.
Cauchon mentioned decriminalization, the questions only came from one
direction. How is decriminalization better than the status quo? How do you
know the sky won't fall? But now, thanks to the Senate report, there will be
questions from the other end: What is the value of ticketing people for
marijuana possession? Why is that better than simply letting people decide
for themselves whether they will use marijuana or not?
It's even possible -- or at least possible for me to hope -- that the Senate
report will knock the wind out of the "decriminalization" option that has
become the refuge of politicians who know the status quo is a sad joke, but
can't bring themselves to say "legalize." The problem with
decriminalization, as the Senate report makes crystal-clear, is that it does
absolutely nothing about the black market in marijuana. It is the
prohibition of the production and sale of marijuana that puts the trade into
the hands of the Hells Angels, the Bandidos and every other thug looking to
make a quick buck. Only by creating a system of licensed, legal production
and sale can the black market be taken away from organized crime -- a lesson
no one who reads the Senate report can miss.
The Le Dain commission didn't go quite that far because they felt there
wasn't enough information about the long-term effects of marijuana or what
effect legalized sales would have on use. We now have that information, the
Senate report says, and it is based on those facts the report supports full
legalization. In a sense, that makes the Senate report the concluding
chapter to the Le Dain report of 30 years ago. That's a historic achievement
that chairman Senator Pierre Claude Nolin should take pride in.
There's much else the senators should be proud of. The report is
astonishingly thorough, marvelously researched and -- a rare thing for
policy reports -- sharply written. With methodical precision, the report
takes the mickey out of one myth after another. The "gateway theory?"
Drivel. Marijuana causes violence? Silly. "Amotivational syndrome?"
Nonsense. The idea that punitive policies reduce marijuana use while more
liberal policies send use soaring? Balderdash.
And on and on and on. No responsible politician or journalist can spout off
about marijuana ever again until they read this report.
Of course, in the long, turbulent history of marijuana in the Western world,
there have been precious few responsible politicians -- or journalists, to
be honest. If we are blessed with such men and women today, the Senate
report may be the shot that started the revolution. If not, the report will
become just another in the long line of wise studies ignored by the fools
who lead us.
Reach Dan Gardner at dgardner@thecitizen.southam.ca
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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