Justice argues pot's not so bad - Politicians should listen to her view that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol
Source: Times Colonist, 06/24/03

Mary Southin, one of three B.C. Appeal Court justices acquitting a Vancouver couple charged with running a grow operation last week, took the opportunity to say a few things about marijuana, a substance which she now finds no more dangerous than alcohol.

She said Parliament has been "hoodwinked" about anti-pot "propaganda," that arresting and prosecuting marijuana users and traffickers is little more than a make-work exercise for police, lawyers and judges, and suggests that Parliament should back off marijuana and allow it to be regulated, like liquor, by the provinces.

Southin is probably as well known for her smoking habits as for her judgments -- taxpayers had to pay to have her office in the Vancouver courthouse ventilated so she could smoke cigarettes there in violation of the law. But her reasons for judgment can bristle with common sense that other jurists are more cautious about expressing.

She has called the law "a profession of mercenaries." She has expressed understanding for victims of crime who might think Canada is "lawless and unjust" when new trials are ordered in some cases. She has said making possession of pornography a crime "bears the hallmark of tyranny." She has not found "any particular harm" in prisoners smoking pot.

This time, her views on marijuana couldn't be more timely. The government has introduced a bill -- slated to go ahead after Parliament's summer break -- to make possession of up to 15 grams of pot an offence, but not a crime. Provincial governments, including B.C.'s, are categorically opposed to decriminalizing marijuana possession. U.S. authorities are warning that special measures will have be taken to prevent this permissiveness north of the border corrupting American youth and encouraging organized crime.

Southin said in her judgment that she is giving her own reasons for acquitting the pot-growers only because "the seriousness of the crime" is one of the elements that have to be considered in marijuana cases. While she once thought marijuana offences were serious, she stated, she doesn't any longer, though Parliament has been "hoodwinked" into thinking they are.

Growing, trafficking in and possessing marijuana, Southin said, has created a lot of work for police, lawyers and judges, though "whether that work contributes to peace, order and good government is another matter." Pot, she said, "appears to be of no greater danger to society than alcohol."

Southin compared marijuana prohibition to the attempt to prohibit alcohol in Canada after the First World War -- an effort, she observed, that didn't work. She finds it "curious" that no one has challenged federal laws against marijuana on the grounds it is not of national concern and therefore should fall under provincial jurisdiction.

"Parliament, having long since yielded to provincial legislatures the regulation of alcohol, perhaps might consider yielding the regulation of marijuana," Southin says.

Federal politicians are having trouble enough making the first, small step to decriminalizing simple possession. They may find that, as in homosexual marriage and other social issues, judges are in more of a hurry. Other judges have downplayed the harm done by the drug.

The politicians should pay attention to the smoke signals coming from the Vancouver courthouse.