Pubdate:  Tue, 13 May 1997
Source:   London Free Press
Contact:                   Criminology expert explains drug law history

    The professor from Simon Fraser University said prohibition of marijuana
    was quietly enacted without informed debate.

  By Eric Bender
  Free Press Reporter

   Canada's drug law regarding marijuana was born out of a racial
   backlash, is unsupported by research and was enacted without debate, a
   Simon Fraser University criminology professor said in a London court
   Monday.

   Drug prohibition, a 20thcentury phenomenon, began in Canada in 1908
   when the smoking of opium was criminalized in response to prejudice
   against the Chinese and Japanese who were willing to work cheaper than
   others at the time, Neil Boyd told Ontario court, general division
   judge John McCart.

   Boyd said cannabis was added to the schedule of banned substances in
   1923 almost unnoticed and with no informed debate.

   Testifying for the defence in the trial of London hemp store
   proprietor Chris Clay, who is charged with possession and trafficking
   cannabis seeds and plant seedlings, Boyd said cannabis was probably
   added because Canada's first woman judge, Emily Murphy, wrote in a
   1922 book, The Black Candle, that persons using marijuana "lose all
   sense of moral responsibility" and become "raving maniacs."

   CHALLENGE MOUNTED: Clay and store employee Jordan Prentice, who is
   also charged, have pleaded not guilty to all charges and have mounted
   a constitutional challenge claiming the law is illconceived,
   unreasonable and therefore an infringement of individual rights.

   The defence, through witnesses, has attacked the severity of sentences
   for simple possession and trafficking and the resulting criminal
   convictions that cause individuals to lose employment, restrict border
   crossings and assume a social stigma.

   Boyd said an initial gettough policy when marijuana skyrocketed in
   the 1960s was softened when it was found the jails couldn't hold all
   those convicted. "Now a fine is typical," he said.

   The professor recalled a program in London during the 1970s when he
   was going to the University of Western Ontario called TIP  Turn In a
   Pusher  that left bright young students tarred for life with
   criminal records.

   While the actual numbers of people being jailed for simple possession
   dropped in the early 1980s, the rate actually increased. As of 1985,
   he said, the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs decided to halt reporting of
   cannabis possession offences citing budgetary constraints.

   Boyd said he feels the bureau was "embarrassed by its own data" and
   the federal Liberal government "doesn't want to start up a debate and
   argue whether a jail sentence is appropriate for a cannabis
   conviction."

   Boyd said he favors government control of cannabis so that it can be
   grown and distributed and taxed under regulation and carry educational
   information as to its uses and dangers.

   CHEAPEST INTOXICANT: He said a cannabis high is the cheapest and
   safest intoxicant.

   He calculated for the court that a person can achieve a cannabis kick
   for $1.67. "It would cost a lot more than that to get high on
   alcohol," he said.

   Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School,
   said there is no basis for excluding marijuana for medical use as it
   essentially is in Canada and the U.S.

   After studying the social and medical effects of marijuana since 1967,
   Grinspoon said he has concluded it is the safest of all intoxicants 
   right down there with caffeine  yet beneficial for alleviating pain
   and achieving other medical relief.

   OVERDOSE: He said it is impossible to overdose on marijuana, there
   have been no deaths directly resulting from its intake, unlike the
   several thousand people who die each year of gastric bleeding caused
   by Aspirin.

   "In the future, marijuana will be recognized as a remarkable
   medicine," Grinspoon told the court.

   He said marijuana is nonaddictive, does not induce psychiatric
   disorder, does not lead to criminal activity or aggression, is not
   significant in causing motor vehicle accidents, is not a stepping
   stone to hard drugs and does not cause brain or organ damage.

   He said cannabis should be controlled in the same way alcohol is
   allowed into society.

   The trial continues today.