cannabisnews.com: Time to Legalize Pot Time to Legalize Pot Posted by FoM on April 01, 2000 at 13:26:04 PT Daily Editorial Source: National Post Last year, the Association of Canadian Police Chiefs announced support for the legalization of simple possession of marijuana and hashish. Recently Keith Martin, a Reform MP (and a practising emergency room physician), introduced a private members bill that would decriminalize marijuana. And while his bill has languished, its gist has been adopted by the Liberals. At the final plenary session of the Liberal convention, delegates backed a proposal to decriminalize simple pot possession. This movement to call off the war against marijuana is gaining strength in other countries as well. A report prepared for the British government by Viscountess Runciman, Drugs and the Law, suggested this week that marijuana possession should be punishable only by fines. In the United States, half a dozen state referendums since 1992 have urged the legalization of marijuana for medical uses. And some legislators -- such as Republican congressmen Jim Ramstad (MN) and Tom Campbell (CA) -- have publicly charged that the "war on drugs" has been a costly failure. None of this suggests that decriminalizing marijuana would be a positive good. The drug is still something to be discouraged. It is mind-altering; and smoking it is both physically and psychologically unhealthy. If recreational marijuana use could be wiped out at one stroke, the world would be a better place -- as it would be if tobacco could be removed from the world and our memories. But such developments are a more impossible dream than anything experienced under hashish. And the actual policy we have -- the war on drugs -- does a very great deal of observable harm. Because the drug trade is illegal, it is unregulated and untaxed; there is no quality control and some illegal drugs are strengthened with cheap poisons; disputes are settled gangland style by sawn-off shotguns; massive teams of policemen are diverted from solving worse crimes; others are corrupted; and respect for the law is eroded when millions of young people are enticed into flouting a law that is itself enforced capriciously. The sum of all of these social harms outweighs the threats posed by the object of prohibition itself -- and that prohibition is manifestly ineffective. Even under the war on drugs, they are readily available in any North American city. And though marijuana is dangerous, exactly how dangerous is it? According to the World Health Organization, every year tobacco kills 3.5-million people directly or indirectly. Alcohol kills another 750,000. How many are killed by marijuana? None. Almost none anyway. According to The Lancet, a leading British medical journal, "there are no confirmed published cases worldwide of human deaths from cannabis poisoning ... the most serious possible consequence of acute cannabis use is a road-traffic accident if a user drives while intoxicated." Marijuana, moreover, is not addictive and, unlike alcohol, does not promote aggressive behaviour. In a report on the medicinal uses of marijuana commissioned by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Institute of Medicine concluded last year that "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana are within the range tolerated for other medications." Yet Canadian police departments spend millions on the criminal campaign against this substance. Almost three out of every four drug arrests involve cannabis. Cannabis possession alone accounts for almost half of all offences. Some sufferers of cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and epilepsy who rely on marijuana to effectively palliate their symptoms are prosecuted as criminals -- or hamstrung with maddening bureaucratic roadblocks. And all the while, cigarettes are sold over the counter in pharmacies and convenience stores; and alcohol is on the menu at Red Lobster. We try to contain the ill effects of alcohol and tobacco by public education, labelling requirements, strict quality control, restricting access to minors, and so on. Over the centuries our society has developed cultural safeguards and social conventions that help us to use alcohol wisely. And we distinguish between the use and abuse of these socially acceptable drugs in a way that we have not yet learned to do toward marijuana. Marijuana legalization has long been the subject of academic debate. The time has come to turn conjecture into law. Canada's police, judges and prosecutors have better things to do with their time than track down those who produce and consume a substance no more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco. We should begin the decriminalization of marijuana by immediately reducing the punishments that can be imposed for its possession to modest fines -- and start thinking about how to regulate its use.Published: April 1, 2000Copyright © Southam Inc. CannabisNews Articles on Canadian Issues over 500 Items:http://www.ussc.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/search?type=all&query=cannabisnews+canada END SNIP --> Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #6 posted by james blake on February 13, 2001 at 13:01:01 PT: why not? i have been trying to get a rally started to make pot legal and i stubled on your site and i think its a great idea!!!! [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by staci on April 05, 2000 at 17:22:49 PT: Got Weed? Why drink and drive when you can smoke and fly? [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Bryan on April 04, 2000 at 09:23:23 PT: Legalization of Cannabis in the US. First of all, I think it's B.S. when people say that marijuana is a gateway drug. I've been smoking for 5 years, and have never even imagined why I would ever want to sniff filthy cocaine. Smoke the crack the government made to trap people in their own minds. Or any kind of other deadly drug. Why couldn't the government legalize marijuana as a trial period. But before they do, send a poll to cities all over the country, asking current drug users, "If we, as the government of the U.S. of America, were to legalize the herbal marijuana leaf. Would you hard drug users stop using them because you can now use this medicine. I gaurantee, more than 80 percent would mark yes. Then I would say, If we do consider to legalize marijuana, and the percentage of hard-drug arrests still increases, or doesn't go down at least 5-10 percent. We will illegalize it again. Why couldn't they just try. It's the next generation and it's definitely time for a change. If we keep throwing innocent people in jails, this society will become corrupt. The jail system is like a modern slavery system. I bet most people don't know that in a lot of prisons in suburban towns are contributing money to the town or city with every prisoner. I bet most people also don's realize that every prisoner accounts for the city that they are in prison on the census. I might not have said this right, because I'm only fifteen( and a little tired) :-) But for example, Say I was in prison, in a small town in New York called Yorkstown. On their city census for the population I would be a citizen. Look it up if you don't believe me. After finding this out, I realize why the representatives from these small towns or cities, even big ones, would not marijuana to be legalized. Why would they want their prisons to stop filling up like cages in a dog pound. Why would they, when the innocent marijuana users are slaves in prison making the owners money. Metiphorically speaking.( Jim Carrey) Can Someone please write me back at my E-mail [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by FoM on April 03, 2000 at 11:47:01 PT Response from Marc-Boris St-Maurice, Bloc Pot Here is a copy of my reaction to the national posts article on saturday.Feel free to post it, copy, send me your constructive criticism...whatever.Keep up the good work. (I just hope it might get printed, if not in the post, somewhere else it might get sent...)Marc-BorisMontrealClick the link to read the complete article.http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/messages/23/23988.shtml Time To Legalize Pot [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Kanabys on April 03, 2000 at 09:15:38 PT: More freakin lies....... Although I agree that cannabis should be decriminalized at the VERY least, I still HATE it when they lie about cannabis, i.e. > None of this suggests that decriminalizing marijuana would be a positive good. The drug is still something to be discouraged. It is mind-altering; and smoking it is both physically and psychologically unhealthy. If recreational marijuana use could be wiped out at one stroke, the world would be a better place... blah, blah, blah, more anti lies and rhetoric. Screw all these lying hypocrites. They can't seem to say a truth without covering their asses with lies. I'm tired as hell of all of it. I'm moving to the Netherlands or the like. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by steve1 on April 01, 2000 at 15:17:38 PT modest fines? quote "We should begin the decriminalization of marijuana by immediately reducing the punishments that can be imposed for its possession to modest fines -- and start thinking about how to regulate its use."Is a "modest fine" called a tax? I hope so. Tax the seeds, tax the dirt, tax the sale, anything is better than getting thrown in jail and having your life destroyed. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: