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.

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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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