Officer, I'd like to report some stolen marijuana

By: Heather Sokoloff, National Post, 07/19/03

TORONTO - A young woman called police yesterday to report she had been robbed of $20 worth of marijuana in what is believed to be the first such case since an Ontario judge said possession of less than 30 grams of pot is no longer illegal.

York Regional Police say they are taking the case seriously and will do their best to retrieve the 18-year-old's stolen property.

"We've never had someone call us before and say, 'Someone stole my marijuana,'" Constable Steve Morrell said.

"But kids obviously feel comfortable enough to do that now."

The woman told police she was hanging out in a schoolyard in Thornhill, an affluent suburb of Toronto, when two teenage boys on mountain bikes approached and asked if she had any marijuana.

She produced two small bags the young men quickly snatched away. When she tried to grab the bags back, one of the teenagers said he had a handgun, according to the police report.

"We are investigating. A crime was committed. We don't have the option of saying one type of crime is not important to us."

Police say they have noticed an increase in marijuana smoking among teens since Ontario Superior Court Justice Steven Rogin upheld a lower court decision acquitting a 15-year-old boy of marijuana possession on May 16.

Judge Rogin found there was no law banning possession of the previously illegal substance because of the federal government's failure to comply with a July, 2000, ruling by the provincial Court of Appeal.

The federal government initially insisted possession of marijuana was still prohibited, but reversed that position a week later and introduced new legislation that would result in fines, instead of criminal sanctions, for possession of small amounts. But the changes are unlikely to become law until next year.

Const. Morrell could not say for sure what will happen if police retrieve the young woman's two little bags of pot.

"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," he said. "If its someone's property, I don't know what legal right we have to hold onto it, unless it's for evidentiary purposes."

Const. Morrell noted that police can confiscate beer if they catch teenagers drinking in public, but says no law exists that allows them to confiscate marijuana.