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October 2, 2002

Marijuana Debate Rages on in Ottawa

 

fidam Grachnik
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA (CUP)—Canadian adults may soon be legally
entitled to “blaze”, “smoke up” or “hit up the phat chron-
ic” if a report tabled by the Canadian Senate is accepted
and passed into law.

The report, released by the Senate Special Committee
on Illegal Drugs, calls for the legalization of marijuana.

“Judges, lawyers, college students [and] brain surgeons.
Everyone smokes marijuana,” said senator and committee
member Tommy Banks. “Putting someone in jail for sim-
ply having a joint in their pocket is wrong.”

The report has triggered intense debate and staunch
criticism from many MPs.

“Its plain absurd,” said Randy White, Canadian
Alliance MP and vice-president of the House of
Commons committee on the non-medical use of drugs.
“Two of the 11 findings were irresponsible. It’s a quan-
p from where we are today. We would be the only
ry to do this...and that should tell you something.”
he extensive 600-page report concludes that, “only
ausing demonstrable harm to others should
ibited: illegal trafficking, selling to young people
der the age of 16 and impaired driving.”

“—,. “Penalties for trafficking should skyrocket,” Banks said.
, “[You should] be put in jail and throw away the key.”

The report also recommends amnesty for “any person
convicted of possession of cannabis under current or past
legislation.”

“Why was marijuana ever criminalized?” asked Banks,
about the 1923 Opium and Drug act, which criminalized
cannabis.

“In retrospee
nalizing it i

  
  
 
   
 
  
 

    
 
   
 
  
 
  

there was no rational reason for crimi-
first place,” he added, admitting to hav-
arijuana once, at a jazz concert in 1957.

the committee is condoning the use of mar-

 
  
 

  

e spend hundreds of millions of dollars saying

committee saying outright, it’s

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okay to smoke marijuana,” he said.
Banks vehemently disagrees with this position.
“Nobody is encouraging use [of] drugs,” he said.
“Drugs are bad and don't do you any good. [But] putting
morality aside, prohibition doesn’t work.”

“You're living in some other place if you think prohibi-
tion laws are keeping drugs away,” he said.

The Marijuana Party, whose mandate is to demonstrate
the social advantages to ending cannabis prohibition,
welcomes the news.

“Tm happy,” said Marc-Boris St-Maurie, leader of the
Marijuana Party. “[I’m] impressed with how far the
Senate Committee went. They used explicit strong
words.”

“Senators have given the marijuana party our platform
for the next election,” St-Maurice added.

The report recommends the government set up preven-
tion programs and “adopt an integrated policy on the
risks and harmful effects of psychoactive substances.” It
also recommends that the Marijuana Medical Access reg-
ulations be changed.

“Present medicinal marijuana provisions are not effec-
tive and must be revised to provide greater access for
those in need,” the report observed.

Banks, who supports marijuana use for medicinal pur-
poses, is optimistic about seeing the report become a real-
aty-

“This has to be dealt with at all orders of government.
It can be done with only one order,” he said, adding that
marijuana should be controlled by the provinces.

“Fairly soon we'll see decriminalization,” he said.

White, on the other hand, believes we'll never see mar-
ijuana legalized.

“It's not going to happen,” he said. “The [report] is not
going to get out of there [House of Commons], believe
me.

 

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