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.