Quick Hits (page 4)
No Laws Ban Possession of Marijuana, Court Rules
By: Colin Freeze and Kim Lunman (The Globe and Mail)
TORONTO and OTTAWA -- Canada has no laws prohibiting marijuana possession, an Ontario Superior Court judge said yesterday in a ruling that will be binding on judges in the province and may soon be picked up across the country.
"For today, and for the Victoria Day weekend, it's a very pleasant state of affairs for recreational pot smokers," said criminal lawyer Paul Burstein, who helped argue the case successfully.
It was the second time that a Windsor teenager who was caught smoking pot while playing hooky in a park has been found not to have broken any law because, the courts ruled, there are effectively no longer any marijuana laws to break.
Mr. Justice Steven Rogin upheld a lower-court decision, based on complex arguments, that has already had far-reaching influence.
The new ruling means that proposed federal legislation to decriminalize possession of a small amount of marijuana would actually "recriminalize" it, defence lawyers said.
While the new law would impose fines for pot possession, the ruling effectively eliminated any sanctions for simple pot possession in Ontario, they said.
The decision "has effectively erased the criminal prohibition on marijuana possession from the law books in Ontario," said Brian McAllister, the lawyer for the accused teenager.
Courts in Nova Scotia and PEI have already put prosecutions on hold pending yesterday's ruling, he said, and lawyers in other provinces were similarly watching for this decision.
The initial ruling in favour of the Windsor teenager, identified only as J. P., had a significant spillover effect and the higher-court decision is expected to be even more influential.
The federal Department of Justice, which appealed the initial ruling, is planning another appeal.
The government still plans to introduce its marijuana-decriminalization legislation later this month.
Most Canadians are behind the idea, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll released yesterday.
It found that 55 per cent of Canadians did not believe smoking marijuana should be a criminal offence, while 42 per cent thought it should be.
More telling, 63 per cent of respondents supported Ottawa's plans to issue tickets and fines similar to traffic violations to those caught with 15 grams or less of marijuana, the poll found.
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said he is seeking the changes so that people who are caught with small amounts will not clog up the court system, potentially receiving criminal records.
For the moment, however, marijuana possession remains the most frequently laid drug charge in Canada even though courts are becoming increasingly resistant to hearing those cases.
Jim Leising of the federal Justice Department said in an interview that he was "disappointed" by the decision and will push to have the case heard quickly in the Ontario Court of Appeal.
"We are are still of the opinion that the law against marijuana is valid," he said.
Mr. Leising said prosecutions will continue, although some may be put on hold.
But defence lawyers involved in J.P.'s case said Ontarians facing possession charges should fight Crown prosecutors' attempts to delay their cases until the law is clarified.
Ontarians who are charged with marijuana possession after the courts ruling could consider suing police for wrongful arrest, they said.
"Anybody who's got a charge before the court should definitely take advantage of this," Mr. Burstein said.
Multiple court battles to strike down the marijuana laws are taking place, he said, leaving Ottawa besieged from many directions.
"The courts keep firing big shots into the sides of the government's ship," Mr. Burstein said.
"They're sinking lower and lower. They are bailing it out with a cup." The Ipsos-Reid poll - of 1001 people, conducted between May 13 and May 15 - found people still have some reservations about decriminalization.
The poll results are considered to reflect accurately the feelings of the entire country to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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Tan 'n' Trends
Growin' Our Own (page 4)
Son of a Beach
By: Hue Tiu Naif
Summer in Cali. What more do I need to say? Blue, sunny skies. Hotter than the hammered hinges of Hell.
I was, like the song in the movie 'Grease', a beauty school drop-out. I had an apartment. I had a roommate, Joanna. I had an old (1964) Buick LeSabre. Life was all good! What do you do when you're nineteen, single, unemployed and bored?
You go to Disneyland!
One morning Joanna and I decided we were not having enough excitement in our lives. We made a snap decision (uh-oh!) to go to Disneyland. Right then. We packed our toothbrushes and a change of undies and hit the road in my Buick. We had about a dollar three ninety-eight, so we figured we were cool. We lived in a relatively small town in the middle of California, and neither of us had ever driven in Los Angeles. No problem! We were WOMEN now - hear us roar!
We had gotten as far south on the 99 freeway as Bakersfield when Joanna spotted a real hottie hitchhiking. He was just off the freeway on an off ramp. I wheeled over across two lanes, much to the chagrin of the rest of the people in those lanes, and we stopped and picked him up. (Have I mentioned that neither of us was really into thinking much?) His name was Kip. Just Kip, not short for anything. He asked where we were going and said he was headed for a town south of L.A. We told him we were going to Disneyland, so he could ride with us all the way to his parents' house. He had just gotten out for summer break from the college in Coos Bay, Oregon and was going home until the fall term. He was also taking his brother some Oregon Super-weed. Well! He wasn't opposed to sharing, so we all partook. And partook. And partook. It felt like it took us another six or seven hours to get to the outskirts of the L.A. megalopolis. In retrospect, I think it was about two hours, actually. Good weed!
We went through all the towns and parts of towns in the L.A. basin, with his able directions, until we got to La Habra where his parents lived. He had invited us to stay there while we were in L.A., and his parents were amenable to that, so we did. They fed us well that night and let us use their guest room.
The next morning he declined making the trip to Disneyland as it was old hat to him, growing up so close to it and all. He gave Joanna and I directions to get there and we told him we'd be back that night. We set out at about ten that morning with all the confidence that only someone young and really dumb can have.
For those of you who have never been to L.A., let me 'splain something here. First of all, the road maps of the freeways look like a blind man on a drunk jackass wandered over the map throwing handsful of cooked spaghetti. Secondly, you cannot get there from here. I don't care where 'there' is. I don't care where 'here' is. YOU CANNOT FUCKING GET 'THERE' FROM 'HERE'!!
We followed Kip's excellent directions slavishly. Four times. We wound up in Yorba Linda. We wound up in Fountain Valley. We wound up in Huntington Beach. We wound up in Buena Park. (Knott's Berry Farm is there, and we almost gave up the quest for Disneyland when we saw that. Oops! Too late, we missed the freeway exit!) Now bear in mind that La Habra is all of about seven miles from Anaheim, where Disneyland is. We finally stopped and asked where we were, and how to get to Disneyland WITHOUT getting on another freeway. The kind gentleman at the gas station took pity on us and drew us a map to go the six blocks we needed to get there. After he finished laughing his ass off, the crusty old fart. We got to Disneyland at about two in the afternoon. Told ya Kip had some good weed, didn't I? Well, we finally got to go on some rides, and left when the park closed, heading for Kip's parents' house. Found it, too!
The next day Kip suggested, instead of going home as we had intended, we let him give us a tour of his stomping grounds. Too cool! He had us driving all around the SoCal area to a variety of head shops and surf shops where we met quite a few of his friends. The part we liked the most was Newport Beach. Well, sort of.
La Habra to Newport Beach is about 23 miles, as the crow flies. Of course it's about a 3 hour drive on the freeways IF you don't get caught in rush hour traffic. We had been driving all over anyway, and kind of meandered our way down to the beach. We got there about an hour before sunset. First person Kip saw was a guy he had gone to high school with. Said high school buddy was soooo glad to see Kip he turned him onto a chunk of black hash - you know, the kind that looks like chocolate. Kip asked me to carry this chunk of hash because the pockets in his cutoffs had holes in them and I was the most 'innocent looking' (and stupid) one of the group. He said no one would suspect an Oriental girl of holding. Shit, too!
Have I mentioned yet that Newport Beach has a regular patrol by cops? Oh, yeah. Lots of them. Anyway, dummy me puts the hash in the pocket of my jeans and thinks no more about it. Kip, Joanna, Kip's friend and I wandered up and down the beach talking to friends of theirs, talking to complete strangers, talking to sand crabs - it didn't matter, just talking. We were having a really good time. Different people gave us sodas and a couple of sandwiches, some cookies. Seemed like everyone was into sharing.
The sun "began to slip into the ocean", as it says in all the drippy romance stories, and we began to make our way back to the car. I found the most perfect sand dollar! I showed it to Kip and Joanna, and then stuck it in the pocket of my shirt. Just then a cop walked up. Scared the crap out of me, I hadn't noticed him. He started the whole rigamarole: what are your names, what are your addresses, what are you doing on the beach (duh!?!). After eliciting the information that Kip was a SoCal resident showing a couple of chickadees from out of town the sights, the cop turns to me and says "Now let me see what you stuffed into your shirt pocket as I walked up." I was totally caught off guard. I pulled the sand dollar out of my pocket and, showing him, said I had found a perfect sand dollar. He looked completely disgusted. He said "Next time you see a law enforcement person, don't act so damned suspicious." Then he walked away, obviously disappointed because the bust he was sure he had didn't pan out.
After my terror subsided I quit sweating and was able to see straight and walk again. As we continued on our way to the car I took Kip's little package out of my jeans pocket and tossed it to him. Joanna told him he was pond scum for putting me in the position of getting busted for his stash when he knew how heavily patrolled the beach was. We took Kip back to his folks' house, made our goodbyes to his parents, and got on the freeway headed home with great relief.
And oh, yeah - we didn't get lost once on the way!
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Pipeline (page 4)
When Holding a Party is a Crime
By: Jacob Sullum (NY Times)
During Prohibition, the government required that industrial alcohol be poisoned, typically with methanol, to keep it from being converted into cocktails. If bootleggers did not completely remove the adulterant, it could cause blindness, paralysis and death. Thus a measure aimed at discouraging alcohol consumption made it more hazardous for those who continued to drink.
A similar dynamic can be seen in today's war on drugs. The latest example is a law President Bush signed last month. The measure, attached to the Amber Alert bill by Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, holds club owners responsible for drug use on their property. The main target - reflected in the rider's original name, the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) bill - is the all-night dance parties, or raves, where the drug MDMA, also called Ecstasy, is popular.
The act prohibits "knowingly opening, maintaining, managing, controlling, renting, leasing, making available for use, or profiting from any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing or using any controlled substance." Given this broad language, anyone who organizes or rents space for an event where drug use takes place could face criminal charges. Not only is the law unlikely to keep people from using Ecstasy, it could magnify the drug's dangers by pushing raves further underground and discouraging voluntary efforts to protect users from serious harm.
The most significant short-term risk associated with MDMA is its impairment of the body's ability to regulate temperature. Overheating is a special concern at raves, where people may dance vigorously in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces for hours at a time.
For years volunteer groups like DanceSafe have been passing out fliers at raves and night clubs with advice on how to avoid dangerous overheating - drink water, take frequent breaks, abstain from alcohol (which compounds dehydration). Event sponsors have helped by providing bottles of water and ventilated "chill out" rooms, measures intended not to encourage drug use but to reduce drug-related harm. Under the new law, however, such sensible precautions could be seen as evidence that the host or owner knew guests would be using drugs, exposing him to $250,000 or more in civil penalties, a criminal fine of up to $500,000, and a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
It could also be incriminating to allow DanceSafe or other groups to set up tables to test drugs for purity. Such testing is an important safety step because tablets sold as MDMA sometimes contain the cough suppressant dextromethorphan, which can block perspiration, impede the metabolism of MDMA and have disturbing psychoactive effects in high doses. Another drug sometimes passed off as MDMA is paramethoxyamphetamine, which is potentially lethal in high doses. On-site testing can prevent bad reactions and deaths, but how many nightclub owners or landlords will risk a prison sentence or ruinous fines by allowing it?
In addition, the anti-rave legislation is likely to push events toward clandestine sites, where conditions will be less safe, supervision less responsible and emergency help less prompt. At remote locations, drug reactions that might otherwise have been quickly treated could turn deadly.
There is no question that MDMA can be dangerous, and legitimate questions remain about its long-term effects on memory. However, it is rarely linked with fatalities: the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network counted fewer than 10 MDMA-related deaths in 1999, the last year for which national totals were reported. The paradox is that the new law could lead to a rise in that number.
In response to criticism of the law, Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who was one of its original sponsors, called for "a more narrowly crafted bill" aimed at promoters "holding events in order to profit from the illegal distribution of Ecstasy." With the law on the books, the question now is how broadly it will be applied. The Drug Policy Alliance, a group that advocates more flexible drug laws, is asking the Justice Department to give the term "knowingly" a narrow reading. Such discretion may anger drug war hard-liners, but it could also save lives.
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