Reply #24: surely you haven't missed the discussions

[iverglas]

I mean, I know it wouldn't actually be in the news on your side of the border, but ...

The Senate of Canada produced a report a couple of years ago recommending that possession of cannabis be decriminalized. It's pretty sure there'd be majority support for the idea in a referendum, if one were to be held. (We don't govern by referendum here, so that won't happen.)

The Ambassador of the US promptly made his chums' views on the matter known.

The fact of the matter is that we cannot risk having individual and commercial traffic across the border impeded. Our economy depends on trade and to some extent tourism. If we did this, we would be subjected to reprisals that we might not be able to withstand.

So meanwhile, for internal purposes, we just don't bother much with law enforcement. My household bought our seeds at a shoppe on the main shopping street last year. If, say, the police had come to my house to investigate a break-in, I probably wouldn't have bothered hiding anything. Well, no point taking risks; I wouldn't have invited them out to the deck.

However, Marc Emery, the quite obnoxious Vancouver loonytarian (late of my home town, old chum of my little bro) who operated a mail-order seed company completely openly, on the net and on location, was charged last year in the US with some big hoo-hah crime. I think our Supreme Court might have refused to allow him to be extradited, in view of the possible life sentence in the US and the inconsistency with our own constitutional Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But it was chancey, and the thing was that your people were also charging two of his associates. Emery took the deal to serve 5 years in exchange for charges being dropped against them.

From our standpoint here, the consequences of the prohibition in the US are horrific.

The crop grown here is exported to the US and traded for cocaine ... and, yes indeed, firearms. Firearms are what you have that organized crime outside the US (same is true for Mexico) wants.

So the crop is grown here by organized crime. The Hell's Angels and their associates and rivals. They grow it purely because it is a tradeable product, tradeable for the things they want and can't get here: guns for themselves and for trafficking, and cocaine for trafficking. To make money. Millions and millions and millions of dollars of it.

So who's the victim? WE ARE. We're the victim. The victim of US drug policy *and* US firearms policy.

Unless drug policy changes IN THE U.S., decriminalizing cannabis here would only make legitimate trade more difficult, and illicit trade easier and more attractive.

When you think about it, it's not actually like anything the rest of the world does has ever had any effect on what gets done in the US, is it? Universal health care, proper access to reproductive health services, proper access to post-secondary education ... we have 'em all, and have had for quite a while, and you don't. We try to lead by example, but nobody's watching.



Research paper from Library of Parliament on the subject:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb0433-e.htm#cunited

Canada's Proposed Decriminalization of Marijuana:
International Implications and Views
17 December 2004

... C. United States Agencies and Officials

The reports of the House of Commons and Senate Special Committees in relation to cannabis in 2002 caused some immediate concern in the United States. The Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, John Walters, warned that relaxed marijuana laws would lead to an increase in drug abuse in Canada, stating, “When you weaken the societal sanctions against drug use, you get more drug use. Why? Because drugs are a dangerous addictive substance.” The United States also expressed concern that liberalized marijuana laws in Canada would lead to more drugs crossing into the United States. For example, Colonel Robert Maginnis, a drug policy adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush, asserted that the United States would not look kindly on changes to Canadian marijuana laws and warned that it would be forced to take action. He stated, “It creates some law enforcement problems and I think it creates some trade problems and some perception problems, especially in the U.S., with regard to whether Canada is engaged in fighting drug use rather than contributing to drug use” and “We’re going to have to clamp down even stronger on our border if you liberalize and contribute to what we consider a drug tourism problem.”(39)

After Canada introduced its initial marijuana bill in May 2003, John Walters, the U.S. Drug Control Policy Director, warned that if the bill passed, the result would be increased security and lengthy delays at the border.(40) He was quoted as saying, “We don’t want the border with Canada looking like the U.S.-Mexico border,”(41) “You expect your friends to stop the movement of poison toward your neighbourhood” and “We have to be concerned about American citizens … When you make the penalties minimal, you get more drug production, you get more drug crime.”(42) David Murray, special assistant to Mr. Walters, stated that the proposed decriminalization initiative was “a matter we look upon with some concern and some regret” and “We would have no choice but to respond.”(43) Mr. Murray was also quoted as saying, “We have a working partnership that has been mutually beneficial with enormous amounts of trade. Eighty-five percent of Canada’s exports go into the United States. … That trade is mutually beneficial, but we might have to make sacrifices for the integrity of the border on both sides if we recognize that drug trade is hurting us.”(44)

Also in 2003, Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was quoted as saying, “We don’t want the northern border to be a trafficking route for drugs” and “If countries have divergent policies on drugs, then that increases the potential of the borders becoming a trafficking route.”(45) Will Glaspy, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, was quoted as saying, “Liberalizing drug laws will lead to an increase in drug use … and drug supplies. They will lead to increased security at the border.”(46)

While it does not appear to have commented on the decriminalization of marijuana itself, the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center has identified what it considers to be a significant issue regarding the growing importation of marijuana into the United States from Canada. It has noted that Canada is the source of considerable and increasing amounts of high-grade marijuana available in U.S. drug markets.(47)

In response to Canada’s most recent bill regarding marijuana law reform, Paul Cellucci, the American ambassador to Canada, has commented on Canada’s proposed legislation with the following statements: “Why, when we’re trying to take pressure off the border, would Canada pass a law that would put pressure on the border?” and “If people think it’s easier to get marijuana in Canada, then our people at the border are going to be on the lookout, and I think they will stop more vehicles, particularly vehicles driven by young people, whether they’re citizens of Canada or the United States.”(48)

Although officials and agencies of the United States administration have commented negatively on Canada’s proposed decriminalization of marijuana in the past, the United States does not appear to have taken any formal position on the latest bill to reduce penalties for marijuana possession and production in small amounts. During his visit to Ottawa on 30 November 2004, President George W. Bush would not publicly speculate on whether marijuana decriminalization in Canada would result in a border crackdown, saying that “it’ll probably affect those who use marijuana a lot more than it’ll affect the border.”(49) The President preferred not to discuss Canada’s marijuana law reform, adding “I don’t have a comment on what you’re doing internally about that.”(50) Deputy Prime Minister Anne McClellan confirmed that the issue “was certainly not brought up in either of the meetings I attended with the President and his people.”(51) However, newspaper sources stated that Mr. Bush expressed some reservations about marijuana decriminalization, similar to those of Ambassador Paul Cellucci, in a private conversation with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.(52)

Given the lack of an official American position on Canada’s proposed marijuana law reform, it is unclear what impact the latest bill, if adopted, would have on Canada-U.S. relations and, in particular, border control.

But we'd kinda have to be morons not to have a pretty good idea.