This session of Parliament will include major changes to Canada's justice system in the form of Harper's "omnibus crime bill" despite overwhelming opposition from experts, Justice Canada reports, and even officials in the U.S.

I hope you all had a wonderful 4/20 this year; however, the festivities are only getting warmed up. Between May 1^st and the 8^th, the Global Marijuana March will be sweeping across Canada. There are cities in every region hosting a March, and I implore you to show your solidarity with the international reform movement. Only once a year do we Canadians get to stand up with our fellow human beings around the world and call with a single voice for the end of cannabis prohibition.

Compassion, justice, liberty, and history are all on our side, but ultimately reasoned argument can only get us so far. Poll after poll says the majority of Canadians support cannabis reform, but our national leaders continue to pretend it’s a fringe issue. They’ve deluded themselves into believing it would be “political suicide” to endorse it, preferring the cowardice of ignorant support for the status quo. But when tens of thousands of Canadians from Nova Scotia to British Columbia vote with their feet on the streets, even the deafest of ears can’t help but hear the roar.

To find the March closest to you, please click this link.

In its annual report for 2009, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) chided Canada’s medicinal cannabis program, suggesting it is susceptible to diversion of cannabis into illicit trafficking. Justice Minister Robert Nicholson has seized on it to advance the Conservative “tough on crime” agenda, particularly harsher sentencing for drug convictions.

What is most remarkable about all this is the report’s baffling dearth of substance, and the complete disjoint between what it actually does say and the Conservative knee-jerk response. The report makes absolutely no attempt to explain or demonstrate how Canada’s present decentralized system built on personal relationships between patients and growers is dangerous. In fact, it doesn’t even directly say it is. Instead, it simply states that any country that permits growing cannabis is obliged by treaty to completely control the process through a centralized government bureaucracy that separates the producers from the consumers. This, somehow, is supposed to ensure none of the cannabis leaks out into the black market. Canada doesn’t use such a model, which evidently is enough proof for the INCB that Canada’s medicinal cannabis program poses a threat to international harmony.

How much cannabis is being channeled from the medicinal program into illicit activities? How is it that the INCB’s proposed regulations would do any better than Canada’s program to keep weed off the streets? How would the quality of care be affected by breaking the direct bond between patient and grower and replacing it with an impersonal government apparatus? And just how does any of this relate to mandating the justice system lock up non-violent drug offenders for years on end? One would be hard-pressed to answer any of these questions after reading the INCB report or the Justice Minister’s response.

Pointing to the UN as an excuse to Americanize Canadian criminal law is a shameful abdication of responsibility and surrender of national sovereignty by our government. Adding absurdity to injury, the mandatory minimum sentencing policy Harper’s Conservatives wish to import has already proven to be an abject failure in the US, exploding incarceration rates with zero reduction in crime. The awesome cost of maintaining the world’s largest prison population is weighing on the US more heavily than ever. Just as the Canadian economy is starting to get back on its feet, Harper and Nicholson are measuring our country for cement shoes.

Our government has transformed itself into a distorting echo-chamber of distant, unelected bodies and is uncritically parroting ruinous American brutalitarianism. It is high time we Canadians broke through this cacophony with a clarion call for compassion and respect for patients, and the growers they personally depend upon for the medicine they need.

 

(The relevant text from the INCB 2009 Annual report follows)

 

415. Canada continues to be one of the few countries in the world that allows cannabis to be prescribed by doctors to patients with certain serious illnesses. In 2008, nearly 2,900 patients were authorized to possess cannabis for medical purposes. Until 2009, cannabis could be either obtained from a Government supplier or grown in small amounts by the patient, or a person designated by the patient, with the sole limitation that only one patient could be supplied by a licensed supplier. In 2009, following court decisions stipulating that that approach unjustifiably restricted the patient’s access to cannabis used for medical purposes, the Government increased the number of cultivation licences a person could hold from one to two. The Government intends to reassess the programme for controlling medical access to cannabis.

 

According to article 23 of the 1961 Convention, a party to the Convention, if it is to allow the licit cultivation of cannabis, must fulfil specific requirements, including the establishment of a national cannabis agency to which all cannabis growers must deliver their crops (see paragraphs 63-64 below). The Board therefore requests the Government to respect the provisions of article 23. 

 

63. Pursuant to article 28 of the 1961 Convention, a State that permits the cultivation of the cannabis plant for the production of cannabis is required to establish a national cannabis agency to carry out the functions stipulated under article 23 of that Convention. The agency designates the areas in which cultivation is permitted, licenses cultivators, purchases and takes physical possession of crops and has the exclusive right of wholesale trading and maintaining stocks. As for all narcotic drugs, parties to the Convention have the obligation to submit to the Board each year their estimates and statistical reports with respect to cannabis.

 

64. Failure of a party to comply with mandatory control measures for the cultivation of the cannabis plant or the production or use of cannabis may facilitate the diversion of cannabis into illicit channels. The Board requests all Governments concerned to ensure full compliance with the control measures for cannabis as stipulated in the 1961 Convention.

In its annual report for 2009, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) chided Canada’s medicinal cannabis program, suggesting it is susceptible to diversion of cannabis into illicit trafficking. Justice Minister Robert Nicholson has seized on it to advance the Conservative “tough on crime” agenda, particularly harsher sentencing for drug convictions.

What is most remarkable about all this is the report’s baffling dearth of substance, and the complete disjoint between what it actually does say and the Conservative knee-jerk response. The report makes absolutely no attempt to explain or demonstrate how Canada’s present decentralized system built on personal relationships between patients and growers is dangerous. In fact, it doesn’t even directly say it is. Instead, it simply states that any country that permits growing cannabis is obliged by treaty to completely control the process through a centralized government bureaucracy that separates the producers from the consumers. This, somehow, is supposed to ensure none of the cannabis leaks out into the black market. Canada doesn’t use such a model, which evidently is enough proof for the INCB that Canada’s medicinal cannabis program poses a threat to international harmony.

How much cannabis is being channeled from the medicinal program into illicit activities? How is it that the INCB’s proposed regulations would do any better than Canada’s program to keep weed off the streets? How would the quality of care be affected by breaking the direct bond between patient and grower and replacing it with an impersonal government apparatus? And just how does any of this relate to mandating the justice system lock up non-violent drug offenders for years on end? One would be hard-pressed to answer any of these questions after reading the INCB report or the Justice Minister’s response.

Pointing to the UN as an excuse to Americanize Canadian criminal law is a shameful abdication of responsibility and surrender of national sovereignty by our government. Adding absurdity to injury, the mandatory minimum sentencing policy Harper’s Conservatives wish to import has already proven to be an abject failure in the US, exploding incarceration rates with zero reduction in crime. The awesome cost of maintaining the world’s largest prison population is weighing on the US more heavily than ever. Just as the Canadian economy is starting to get back on its feet, Harper and Nicholson are measuring our country for cement shoes.

Our government has transformed itself into a distorting echo-chamber of distant, unelected bodies and is uncritically parroting ruinous American brutalitarianism. It is high time we Canadians broke through this cacophony with a clarion call for compassion and respect for patients, and the growers they personally depend upon for the medicine they need.

 

(The relevant text from the INCB 2009 Annual report follows)

 

415. Canada continues to be one of the few countries in the world that allows cannabis to be prescribed by doctors to patients with certain serious illnesses. In 2008, nearly 2,900 patients were authorized to possess cannabis for medical purposes. Until 2009, cannabis could be either obtained from a Government supplier or grown in small amounts by the patient, or a person designated by the patient, with the sole limitation that only one patient could be supplied by a licensed supplier. In 2009, following court decisions stipulating that that approach unjustifiably restricted the patient’s access to cannabis used for medical purposes, the Government increased the number of cultivation licences a person could hold from one to two. The Government intends to reassess the programme for controlling medical access to cannabis.

 

According to article 23 of the 1961 Convention, a party to the Convention, if it is to allow the licit cultivation of cannabis, must fulfil specific requirements, including the establishment of a national cannabis agency to which all cannabis growers must deliver their crops (see paragraphs 63-64 below). The Board therefore requests the Government to respect the provisions of article 23. 

 

63. Pursuant to article 28 of the 1961 Convention, a State that permits the cultivation of the cannabis plant for the production of cannabis is required to establish a national cannabis agency to carry out the functions stipulated under article 23 of that Convention. The agency designates the areas in which cultivation is permitted, licenses cultivators, purchases and takes physical possession of crops and has the exclusive right of wholesale trading and maintaining stocks. As for all narcotic drugs, parties to the Convention have the obligation to submit to the Board each year their estimates and statistical reports with respect to cannabis.

 

64. Failure of a party to comply with mandatory control measures for the cultivation of the cannabis plant or the production or use of cannabis may facilitate the diversion of cannabis into illicit channels. The Board requests all Governments concerned to ensure full compliance with the control measures for cannabis as stipulated in the 1961 Convention.

Today, the University of California's Center for Medical Cannabis Research published their report. They have been working hard since 2000 to scientifically answer the question, "Does marijuana have therapeutic value?" While many of our members and fellow Canadians have certainly answered this question for themselves, national policy must follow from sound scientific research. The results are now in.

And what is the answer? YES.

The executive summary states, "As a result of this program of systematic research, we now have reasonable evidence that cannabis is a promising treatment in selected pain syndromes caused by injury or diseases of the nervous system, and possibly for painful muscle spasticity due to multiple sclerosis."

You can read the full report by downloading it here. It will be a tragicomic scene to see how the Drug Warriors and Czars try to spin this one, as they have been citing this pending report for the past 10 years to excuse themselves from admitting the truth. "Until that research is concluded, ... most of what the public hears from marijuana activists is little more than a compilation of anecdotes.” So said John Walters, the former Drug Czar in 2002. Well, Mr. Walters, the research is concluded.

It's time to conclude prohibition along with it.