OPINION
O Canada, O cannabis
“I don't think a kid 17 years old, who has a joint,
should have a criminal record,” outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the New York Times last week. I'm no Chretien fan, but on
this, I must agree.
Who would have thought that when my generation came of
age, U.S. marijuana laws would be basically what they were when we were
young? Or that millions in taxpayer dollars would be spent to prosecute
and incarcerate users?
On his way out of Canada's highest office, Chretien
proposed a Cannabis Reform Bill — dubbed “soft pot'” legislation — to
change the penalty for possession of up to 15 grams of marijuana from
jail time to fines of $150 for adults or $100 for minors. Reports
conflict as to whether Canadian lawmakers will approve this piece of
“legacy” legislation. But it's clear the Bush administration strongly
opposes any softening of drug policy across the border, lest it increase
drug use in the U.S.A. Too bad:
Americans might benefit by seeing what happens in a
Canada that has, in essence, decriminalized personal possession of
marijuana. Maybe the results won't all be rosy. Consider the
seedy side of Amsterdam, where coffee shops legally sell cannabis. Ditto
Oakland's “Oaksterdam” — a district so dubbed for its medical marijuana
clubs — to which recreational users and robbers have flocked. A gay and
lesbian youth center was so concerned about marijuana smoke wafting
around the noses of vulnerable youths that it closed its Oaksterdam
office. The executive director told The Chronicle, “When drugs are in
the area, everything else comes with it.”
Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance,
doesn't buy the seedy argument. Cities invite blight, he said; it's not
the drugs. Nadelmann noted that many marijuana advocates oppose
Chretien's measure because it doesn't legalize marijuana, or tax or
regulate the drug. Still, he said: “I think that decriminalization is an
improvement over the current policy of the drug war and arresting
hundreds of thousands of people,” even if decriminalization introduces gray areas into the law.
The benefits of decriminalization, however, should not
be underestimated. In 2001, police arrested more than 700,000 people for
marijuana violations, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report — 88
percent simply for possession. Once they are prosecuted, users have to
live with the stigma of an arrest record, which could bar them from
entering certain professions, and even qualifying for student loans.
As the federal and state coffers hit the red, there
are budgetary issues, too. There's the small cost of jailing first-time
offenders as they are arrested. Worse, there is the large cost of
sending parolees back to prison, not because they committed serious
crimes for which they should be thrown behind bars, but because they
flunked drug tests. A recent Little Hoover Commission report found that
California wastes close to $1 billion annually supervising and returning
parolees to prison for minor parole violations.
The best reason for decriminalization is Chretien's
hypothetical 17-year- old.
I understand why parents fear that readily available
marijuana might hinder their child's development, and so they support
the system. But it is clear that marijuana, while illegal, is readily
available.
According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America,
more than 50 percent of high-school seniors reported having tried an
illicit drug. I don't think that many readers would argue that America
would be a better country if all of those students were arrested and
prosecuted.
By Debra J. Saunders
21 November 2003
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2003/11/20/EDG9G35CMK1.DTL
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