page 6 the other press January 31, 1977 Ottawa report Government | inaction on marijuana OTTAWA (CUP)--It will be two years ago, Feb. 4, 1977 that discussion in committee began on the government’s bill to amend the marijuana laws in Canada. In that time the bill has gone through the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee, suffered amendments, was re- turned to the Senate and pass- ed. It went to the House of Commons on June 18, 1975. It hasn't been heard of since. That bill, S-19 was ‘‘an act to amend the food and drugs act, the narcotic control act, and the criminal code.”’ ‘‘The intent of this legislat- ion,’’ according to Marc La- londe, minister of health and ‘) welfare in his testimony before ‘the committee, “‘is to provide Canadian courts with needed flexibility in dealing with offen- ces involving cannabis so that the penalities levied will be suited to the circumstances and significance of the offences.”’ A spokesperson for the mini- ster said Jan. 19, 1977 there had been ‘‘recent discussion of the whole matter’’ but Loraine An- dras said she could not say what was going to happen to the bill. She also said there was a possibility of some action of the matter at the end of January. Interest in the legislation hasn’t declined. According to Janet Ross of the Addiction Research Foundation of Ont- ario, studies shows increased use of cannabis, especially among 18-29 year old men with university education and earn- | ing $15,000. The Canadian Medical Asso- ciation continues to ‘‘nag away”’ too, according to the CMA’s director of scientific councils. Dr. J.S. Bennett blames ‘‘politi- cal expediency’’ on the lack of government action. Even the chairperson of the original Senate committee that studied the bill, Senator Carl Goldenberg doesn’t know why no action has been taken by the government. _ He said that he knew the bill was ‘‘very controversial’’ but he said: ‘‘] thought I would have been told’’ if the amendments the Senate committee made were unacceptable to the gov- ernment. He said he has heard ‘‘nothing whatsoever’’ about the bill since it passed the Senate two years ago. The government has now at least three options: --It can put the amended Senate version of its bill on the House of Commons order paper and see that it soon comes up for debate. --It can introduce a new version of the bill and take it to the House of Commons for discussion. --Or it can simply drop the whole matter. Debate on Bill S-19 began in Senate Dec. 5, 1974. In those debates the purpose and limits of the bill were made clear. Senator Neiman: ‘‘Honour- able senators, on Tuesday of _last week the government intro- duced Bill S-19 in this chamber, by which it proposes to transfer the legislative provisions relat- ing to cannabis from the narcot- ic control act to the food and drugs act and, in order to regulate those provisions more appropriately, to make amend- ments to the Criminal Code. I cannot stress too strongly that this bill does not make possess- ion of the substance cannabis sativa legal, nor will it, I am sure, when the implications of chese proposals are studied and fully understood, they do not tend to. encourage in any way the use of the substance in any of its forms.” In that speech the govern- ment makes its plans clear. During the course of witness testimony before the committee and in the debates in the Senate, proponents of the bill repeatedly stated what the gov- ernment had been saying all along. ,This bill will change the category of offence that smoking marijuana is but it will not make an act which is illegal now, legal. As Dr. Bennet of the CMA said during the hearing, ‘‘Sure- ly in this day and age it is practical to make something an offence without necessarily making it a criminal offence."’ One of the key amendments made by the Senators to the original bill referred to import- ation of marijuana for personal use. The RCMP had objected to this clause and before the bill went back to the Commons the section was simply removed. ° That section stated, ‘50 (1) except as authorized by this part of the regulations, no person shall import into Canada or export from Canada any canna- bis,’’ and later ‘‘except that sub-paragraph (b) (ii( (regard- ing penalties) does not apply were that person, after having been found guilty of the offence, establishes that he imported or exported the cannabis for his own consumption only.”’ The committee also recom- mended that first offenders would be given an absolute or conditional discharge after con- viction for possession of mari- juana. Maximum penalties for im- porting or exporting would be reduced to 14 years less a day from the existing 14 years. The law now states that absolute or conditional discharges can only be granted in offences that carry a penalty of less than 14 years. Not all the disucssion in Senate was serious however. One senator, Sullivan made his position on the whole matter very clear. ‘‘The use of soft drugs leads almost inevitably to the use of hard drugs. There is no such thing as ‘simple posses- sion of marijuana’, I would remind Senator Neiman. They are all passing it on, or prosely- tizing. Furthermore, I am in favour of the death penalty for heroin traffickers. You now know exactly where I stand,”’ he said. Another, Senator Lorne Bon- nell said ‘‘Marijuana has no » medical use, and its effect on our young people between 14 and 20 cost our society dearly. These youngsters lose their initiative, drive, sense of pur- pose and their ambition to succeed.’’ It was in this atmo- sphere that the Senate passed the amended Bill S-19. U.S. President Jimmy Carter said he favored decriminalizing marijuana smoking--reducing the offense to a misdemeanor from a felony--but not its legal- ization. WHOLE EARTH cont’d. “After sitting watching it for two hours, the cinema-goer emerges into the street struck by ‘what could happen.’ The lines at the unemployment of- fice, inflation and the high cost of living are all for a while blurred in his mind by the fearful snarl of the gorilla, which makes him think that things could be worse after all.’’ FOUR PESTS TOP CHINAS HIT PARADE SAN FRANCISCO (ENS CUP)-- ’ As Stevie Wonder continues to dominate the hit album charts in the West, Mao Tse Tung’s widow and the Four Pests have jumped to the top of the hit parade in the People’s Republic of China. According to Agence France- Presse, the hottest record in Peking right now is called “‘Indignantly Condemn the Wang-Chang Chiang-Yao Gang of Four.’’ Peformed by a Peking _ choral group, the album attacks Chiang Ching, Mao’s widow, who was arrested last fall with three other radical leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the government. The hit album contains such cuts as ‘‘Down With the Anti- Party Clique of the Gang of Four.”’ *‘Hail the Great Victory of the Crushing of the Anti-Par- ty Clique’’ and ‘‘Everyone is Rejoicing over the Wiping Out of the Four Pests.” DRESSING UP FOR NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST LIVERMORE CAL.--The latest thing in nuclear fallout fashions is a synthetic fiber suit called NucleClean, designed and marketed by former nuclear engineer Marlin Ebert of Liver- more, California. Ebert says growing public concern over the hazards of nuclear radiation from weapons or nuclear power plants prompted him to design what he calls a ‘‘radiation hazard emergency personal anticontamination kit.’’ For just $16.50, it includes a respirator, a pair of overalls, gloves, boots, mask and even special towels and detergent sponges for de- contamination. “‘What people don’t realize is that they can handle fallout, like many other forms of contami- nation,’’ Ebert says. ‘‘It’s a really super garment,’’ he adds, “‘and with the particle respirator it will keep you in good shape.”’ He says the suit is made of DuPont Tyvek, a material with smaller ‘‘pores’’ than conven- tional clothing. Ebert says he hopes to sell to the same people who buy emergency foodstuffs for their fallout shelters. He’s also aiming at the armed forces and the Defense Civil Prepared- ness Agency as potential cus- tomers. GIVE YOUR TEETH A TOOT CHICAGO (ENS CUP)--We’ve all heard of whistling while you work but now a Chicago dental supply manufacturer has figur- ed out how to make the whistle work for him. Wallace Erickson plans to make a bundle with a tooth- brush you can toot. He has invented a whistling toothbrush which comes equipped with a slide for producing different notes. Erickson also has a patent pending on a toothpaste tube with a whistling gap.. FEDERAL BUILDINGS TO SWITCH TO SOLAR WASHINGTON D.C.--Federal Energy Administrator Frank Zarb has announced plans to introduce solar water heating in most federally owned buildings across the nation. Zarb says the Defense Department, the Vet- erans’ Administration and the General Services Administrat- ion will all begin converting facilities under their authority to solar water heating wherever possible. Those facilities include military bases, veterans’ hospi- tals and federal offices and laboratories. Zarb noted that ‘‘25 per cent of the energy used in this country goes for heating and cooling buildings and for heat- ing water.’’ He said the federal conversion to solar ‘‘means less oil and natural gas used to heat water, a growing solar industry, and more jobs for Americans who will be needed to design, manufacture and install solar equipment.”’