Not surprisingly, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are not very impressed with Stephen Harper’s plans to intensify the war against cannabis and its derivatives. They noted earlier this week that the Prime Minister appears to have his head up George Bush’s butt (they are speaking metaphorically, I assume); their advice is characteristically blunt, “Wise up, you douchebag”.
In these days of public sector restraint there is one realm of waste that is often neglected – the planned and pointless expenditure of billions of tax dollars on new provincial and federal prisons, the consequence of a series of Conservative crime bills.
In 1910 Winston Churchill stated that one of the “unfailing tests” of a civilization lies in how it treats crime and criminals. In 1967 Pierre Trudeau told Canadians that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.
My first foray into marijuana research began 40 years ago, in the spring of 1970. It was what sociologists call participant observation research; I smoked some hashish with my friends in my final year of high school, and observed its effects on my behaviour. I noticed that the experience enhanced my appreciation of music, increased my appetite, and made me laugh at things that I might not ordinarily think were very funny. In sum, not a bad way to spend an evening in a small town in Ontario. Not as wild and crazy as an alcohol-fueled evening, but not entirely disappointing either.
Handguns are potentially dangerous commodities, though gun advocates will also insist that they are more protective than dangerous – tools for the protection of home, family and personal property.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has thrown down a challenge to millions of computer savvy Canadians, inviting their questions through the medium of YouTube. And Canadians have complied, throwing a horde of complaints, quizzes and diatribes at the Prime Minister, on topics ranging from climate change to prorogation. Perhaps surprisingly, the most common questions focus on his government’s approach to the control of marijuana. We will hear from the Prime Minister on Tuesday, but I thought it might be helpful to provide him with a little advice before he puts his fingers to the keyboard. Here are two of the more popular questions, and my suggested responses.
“Mr. Harper. Why aren’t we keeping marijuana away from children by controlling it as we control alcohol and tobacco? Why are we encouraging gangs & crime by making marijuana so profitable? Why are you ignoring how ineffectual the current policy is?
Unfortunately, the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision on Insite may not bring an end to the Harper Conservatives’ determination to shut it down – a facility that our province and our city have quite fairly described as a health care initiative.
Friday’s judgement was interesting and complex, with debate focused on such related issues as interjurisdictional immunity, provincial paramountcy, and co-operative federalism. But what was really interesting were the more general policy statements, unencumbered by Canada’s legal structure, and aimed at the heart of the policy issues that we have all been debating. The dissenting judgement, one which would have allowed the appeal of the federal government, concluded, “The current harm reduction model employed at Insite cannot stand isolated from the sourcing, distribution and sale in Canada of the illicit drugs used in its facility, by willfully ignoring the context in which those drugs arrive in the possession of its clientele. This conflicts with Canada’s constitutional mandate for criminal law, which includes the control of dangerous and addictive drugs for the health and public safety of its citizens”.
As we turn the corner on another decade, hopes for a more peaceful society seem to be somewhat elusive – locally, nationally and globally.
Here in Vancouver our city Council has approved the licensing of Mixed Martial Arts, a sport that takes boxing to another level, while still retaining its key goal – one man displaying the speed, ferocity and strength to knock another unconscious. On the national stage, the rate of handgun homicides in our major urban centres has been climbing for a decade, as young men with guns kill their adversaries for a wide range of reasons, ranging from theft and failure to repay debt, to imagined or real insult. On the international stage, matters are even worse. We have literally tens of thousands of individuals, again almost always men, committed to killing as part of some ill-conceived political and/or religious agenda (or mental illness).
What’s the solution? Well, first, let’s separate the mixed martial arts combatants from the young gangsters and the terrorists; at least these folks are playing by some rules. And I must confess, as much as I dislike the blood and the violence, I’m not sure that prohibition of the sport is ultimately a helpful strategy. Increased regulation brings increased safety for those who choose to participate: restrictions on eye gouging and groin kicks, for example, and the comfort of knowing that a properly certified neurologist is sitting ringside.
Let’s assume that mandatory minimum sentences for the distribution of illegal drugs represent good social policy, sending a message to would be participants in the commercial trade. One could then argue that mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment tell drug dealers that their activities will have some new consequences, consequences that will serve to curtail their involvement in the business, particularly if they use weapons, or engage in any form of intimidation.
Unfortunately, the bill has its own internal contradictions, regardless of whether one believes in its approach. The most significant contradiction is its relatively harsh treatment of cannabis production, in contrast to its treatment of the trafficking (or possession for the purpose of trafficking) in cannabis (and heroin and cocaine). Section 5(3) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is to be amended to provide for a minimum term of one year imprisonment for trafficking in heroin, cocaine or cannabis, provided that the convicted person commits the offence as part of a criminal organization, uses violence in committing the offence, is carrying or threatening to use a weapon in committing the offence — or has served a term of imprisonment for a designated substance offence (typically trafficking or importing an illegal drug). Somewhat surprisingly and quite inconsistently, these same caveats are not applied to the offence of marijuana production (section 3.1 (b) of Bill C-15). Granted, the minimum term of imprisonment is six months, rather than one year, but the irony is that the distributors of more dangerous drugs are to be treated less harshly than the producers of a less dangerous drug (cannabis), irrespective of the actual amounts involved. And even more oddly, the distributors of cannabis are to be treated differently from the producers of cannabis, again irrespective of the amounts in question.
I am a child of the 1960s, a product of a rather different era. We were told to question authority and never to trust anyone over 30. We took issue with the morality of what sociologist C. Wright Mills once called the power elites, and we urged greater equality for men and women, rich and poor, gay and straight, and so on.
It is, therefore, particularly disturbing to see that the language of equality and a corresponding distrust of elites is now being used to justify nutty crusades. Take, for example, the need for balance in political debate. Fair enough — for the sake of equality, it’s important that a range of viewpoints be considered. Unfortunately this can produce results of quite silly proportions, when scientists (the power elite) are challenged by those who ascribe the workings of the universe to, take your pick, God, Allah, astrology, the spirit world, or a special bond with the earth. In this world view, equality might dictate, for example, that students be taught not only Darwinism but a literal form of creationism. After all, 45 per cent of Americans believe that God created human beings — in their present form — at some point during the past 10,000 years. Their conception of equality demands that their system of knowledge formation be given respect, even though polls demonstrate that less than one quarter of one percent of American scientists with appropriate educational credentials hold the same point of view. For literal creationists this is all the more telling– it just demonstrates the need for balancing the views of elites with the views of the average working person.
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