All that Canada lacks are the coffee shops, and those are evolving in Vancouver. In Canada, the law is national, but giving the police "discretion" could create areas of de facto legalization very similar to the Dutch model. DEAland pressure inhibits this, but its grip is weakening.)

POT CHARGES ON THE RISE
March 10, 1999
From The Toronto Star
lettertoed@thestar.com
http://www.thestar.com/
Page: A2
By Elaine Carey, Toronto Star Demographics Reporter

Law professor wants to legalize cannabis use

Despite growing cries to decriminalize it, more young people continue to be charged with marijuana offences.

More than seven out of every 10 drug offences in Canada were related to marijuana in 1997 and two-thirds of them were for simple possession, Statistics Canada said yesterday. Among those charged, 86 per cent were under the age of 25.

After dropping dramatically in the 1980s, marijuana offences have risen steadily through the ‘90s while cocaine offences have dropped by 11 per cent and heroin has stayed at about 2 per cent of all charges.

The rate of charges for cultivating marijuana rose by almost a third in 1997, due to more sophisticated growing techniques that allow Canadian traffickers to produce high-quality plants, the study says.

That is another argument for legalizing it, since organized crime no longer controls marijuana in Canada and the violence associated with it has disappeared, said Osgoode Hall law professor Alan Young, who has spent years battling for its decriminalization in the courts.

"The good news is that it is now a domestic product," he said. "Growing it has become a cottage industry."

The statistics fly in the face of police assertions that charging Canadians with marijuana offences is a low priority, he said.

Part of the problem is that the smell is easy to detect.

Young is awaiting a Court of Appeal decision on whether the pungent aroma of marijuana alone is sufficient grounds for police to conduct a search for its source.

Over-all, 47,908 people were charged with marijuana offences in 1997, up from 33,267 in 1991. Charges peaked in 1981 at 75,104, then dropped dramatically through the ‘80s after the passage of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms before rising again through the ‘90s.

Ontario laid 20,927 drug charges in 1997, 15,550 of them for marijuana.

Four out of five were for possession.

"Six hundred thousand Canadians have a criminal record for using marijuana and are marginalized from society because of it."
(Marijuananews note: Canada has a population one tenth of DEAland's. We have had over eleven million arrests in the last 30 years.)
See
1997 Marijuana Arrests Hit 695,000 -- A New Record; Percentage Of Marijuana Arrests For Simple Possession Ties 1979 Record -- Analysis By Richard Cowan

Copyright: 1999, The Toronto Star

POT CHARGES HIGHER THAN EVER, EVEN POLICE CALL FOR SOFTER LAW

March 10, 1999
From The London Free Press
letters@lfpress.com
http://www.canoe.ca/LondonFreePress/home.html
http://www.lfpress.com/londoncalling/SelectForum.asp
By Nahlah Ayed

OTTAWA—Marijuana is the leading cause of drug-related criminal charges in the 1990s, despite growing ambivalence about whether the weed should be illegal.

Marijuana’s resurgence as the drug of choice for Canadians, and increasing availability of home-grown pot has been accompanied by a big jump in pot-related charges over the past decade compared with other drugs.

Statistics Canada data released yesterday indicates the overall number of offences hasn’t changed much since 1983. But marijuana-related charges accounted for 72 per cent of the total in 1997, compared with 58 per cent in 1991.

Half of drug crimes reported by Canadian police in 1997 stemmed from cannabis possession. Charges related to heroin and cocaine dropped between 1991 and The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, which produced the figures, says it doesn’t know why the number of marijuana offences has grown while others have fallen.
(Marijuananews note: Because if people can get marijuana, most people will not want any other drugs. That is the obvious conclusion, but it is really hard for most people to understand because we are so saturated with prohibitionist propaganda about marijuana being a "gateway" drug.)

But Neil Boyd, a Simon Fraser University criminologist, says the growing popularity of marijuana might partly account for the trend.

Others say the growing availability of made-in-Canada marijuana might explain it.

Either way, the trend is disturbing for those who support legalization of cannabis.

"I don’t see how in this day and age anybody can seriously argue that prosecuting people for simple possession of marijuana does one iota of good for society," said Eugene Oscapella, a member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, an Ottawa drug policy think-tank.

He charged that it’s easier to go after marijuana users than hard drug traffickers.

"It’s an easy statistic for the cops. It’s easy to bust people, easy to detect. Police want statistics to prove what they’re doing is working."

The Canadian Police Association says forces don’t have enough resources to fight drug crime at the source.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is against legalization but wants Ottawa to look at decriminalization in some circumstances.

Barry King, police chief in Brockville, said officers are getting fired for using discretion when it comes to drugs and Ottawa has to take the lead on giving police the option of letting minor drug offences go.

"That’s what they’re saying to them, do something legitimate, codify it, give our people the authority and the protection," he said.

(Marijuananews note: Of course, "discretion" is great. Freedom is better!)