No Mandatory Minimums for Common Sense

The Conservative plan to jail pot growers ignores history and science.

One of the most foolish and costly planks of the Conservatives’ so-called get-tough-on-crime agenda is target their plan to impose mandatory minimum terms of six months’ imprisonment on those who grow at least six marijuana plants.

All indications are that the government's plan is a huge overreaction. A 2005 study of seven years of marijuana cultivation arrests in British Columbia revealed that more than 80 per cent of growers did not have guns or traps at their sites, were not involved in organized crime, and were not involved in the theft of electricity. In other words, most marijuana cultivation takes place without imposing significant threats upon the surrounding community.

Further – and this apparently needs to be said repeatedly – the consumption of cannabis is much less likely to lead to significant harm and premature death than the consumption of the perfectly legal and socially acceptable drugs, alcohol and tobacco, even when rates of use are taken into account.

There is a very real sense that the Tories are operating without a shred of science on their side. Why are they doing this? The costs of jailing marijuana cultivators will soar into the hundreds of millions of dollars within a few years – and it will be the provinces, not the federal government, that will have to pay for the construction and operation of these new provincial facilities.

Why have the provinces been so silent? Are they looking to create prison industries in rural areas, shoring up long-standing unemployment and potentially converting these voters to their cause? Do they not care about the costs and the consequences of putting thousands of non-violent offenders in jail? Couldn’t this money be better spent on health care, or other more useful collective endeavours?

In the land of the growers – and the land of the users – the government’s plan will change very little. The consumption of cannabis in Canada increased dramatically between 1965 and 1979, and then fell off quite substantially until the early 1990s, rising again until a few years ago, but never quite hitting the rates of consumption of the late 1970s. These changing patterns of consumption appear, upon careful study and reflection, to have nothing to do with legislative or law-enforcement initiatives.
Full Article
Source: The Mark news