Reply #12: for the eternally confused [View All]

[iverglas]

I posted this story here for two reasons (apart from the fact that I just thought it might be of interest, since I do proceed from the notion that other people are like me, and are interested in a variety of things).

1. A rather horrendous crime was committed in Canada by someone using a firearm (which you'll all be happy to hear is being described in the media as "a high-powered rifle", that being all I know so far; the Mounties were armed with handguns). This is something that does happen -- deaths, injuries and crimes are caused and committed in Canada by people using firearms. Sometimes even by people who are licensed to own firearms, and who use registered firearms (which I doubt was the case here, but might be).

Obviously (and no one ever having said otherwise), Canada's various firearms control measures do not prevent all such events from occurring. In the interests of full disclosure, and particularly because I kind of doubt that most here are likely to hear about such incidents any other way, and because such incidents do present possibilities for discussion of issues, I offered it up.

2. The crime in question, like so many, was plainly a direct result of drug policies. Most here advocate an end to the US govt's "war on drugs" for reasons like this. The incident is an illustration of the arguable wisdom of taking an approach other than criminalization and enforcement to the drug problem.

The fact is that were it not for external pressure, marijuana use would not be criminal in Canada; what approach might be taken to large-scale production is not quite so clear, as Cdn society appears to be ready not to criminalize the user, but not sure what to do about the producer.

The Cdn govt and law enforcement agencies are under heavy pressure from the US govt to enforce existing Cdn laws, and not to formally amend them to decriminalize marijuana possession. This is a fact, whether anyone here chooses to recognize it or not. Retaliatory measures, such as increased "security" measures at the US border allegedly necessitated by such a lax approach to drugs, would cost the Cdn economy huge amounts, in shipping delays alone, just to start with. More formal retaliation might be foreseen as well.

Were it not for the "war on drugs" in the US, and were marijuana use simply decriminalized in Canada as it would then certainly be, it is more than predictable that there would be at least a lot less organized crime involvement in marijuana production and marketing, either here or in the US.

The involvement of organized crime in marijuana production in Canada and the transfer of that product into the US (to the extent that this actually occurs, which is probably less than the US govt claims but more than the cannabis lobby claims) -- the Hell's Angels are our major corporate crime organization, and they engage in very unpleasant activities to protect their interests -- is also a fact. In this instance, it may have been hometown boy with rifle doing the producing, but he was unlikely the one taking the product to market, I'd say.

But gosh, why doesn't Canada just decriminalize marijuana possession? On a very quick google ...

http://www.medicalmarihuana.ca/meddling.html

U.S. Government Threatens Canada with Trade Sanctions
Canadian Marijuana Reform Concern to U.S.

Monday, May 13, 2002
Global National Story

... Sources close to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency say it will soon issue a report claiming there are 15 to 20,000 marijuana growing operations in British Columbia alone and 95 per cent of the output is headed south.

"A dramatic increase in the gross quantity of marijuana of high potency coming across the border," says Colonel Robert Maginnis, a U.S. government adviser on drug policy. He says the Bush administration is alarmed by a recent Senate study that says Canada's marijuana laws are ineffective.

The U.S. fears the next step could be looser regulations leading to more drugs crossing the border and its ready to play hardball with trade to make sure that doesn't happen.

"To antagonize government leaders and grass roots leader because you insist on having a radical drug policy that we will not ignore in the long term, then its going to have adverse consequences and I hope we would be able to rectify it before it comes to blows," explains Maginnis.

Such charming and diplomatically veiled threats.

And damned if I didn't think that people at DU who oppose the Bush administration, and in particular its war on the poor under the cloak of the war on drugs and its bully-boy tactics on the international stage in just about any matter where it regards its interests as supreme, might think that threats like these were just not really a good thing. And might grasp the very real consequences that such policies have for real people outside their borders (don't forget those peasant farmers in Colombia ...), and possibly give a damn about the ones who end up dead.