VIANARCHRIS
Well-Known Member
By 1971, marijuana’s scent hung over most of Canada. Some 1.5 million folks had taken at least one drag on a joint. Hundreds of thousands were regularly firing up, grooving to Three Dog Night and learning from the leaked Pentagon Papers that the U.S. administration had lied about the Vietnam War.
Convictions for simple pot possession exploded: from 431 in 1967 to 5,399 in 1970 and 8,389 in 1971. More than half were against otherwise law-abiding baby boomers under 21 who would now carry criminal records along with their university degrees.
In May 1972, a federal commission of inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs handed an audacious recommendation to the government of then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, whose flower-child bride, Margaret, was smoking weed behind the backs of her RCMP bodyguards.
After two years of public hearings, including testimony from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the Le Dain commission said laws against simple possession of marijuana and hashish should be abolished in the face of a blossoming social attitude among a growing minority of people that grass was relatively harmless. It stopped short of saying the stuff should be made legally available and consumed.
Part of the climate of acceptance was attributed to the expanding influence of rock radio and music such as Black Sabbath’s 1971 stoner anthem “Sweet Leaf.”
But it was the heavy-handed use of criminal law to suppress the youthful pursuit of a buzz that offended many people’s sense of justice and threatened to erode the moral authority of the law, the commission said.
“The use of cannabis is a problem but so also is the present use of the criminal law to suppress it. It is clear that the law has had no serious effect on this issue. There can be no doubt that the law on the books is at extreme variance with the facts. It is simply not a feasible policy in the long run.”
Forty-three years later, recognition of pot’s reality has arrived. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government will do what his father’s would not by legitimizing simple possession of recreational marijuana and regulating its sale, like alcohol and tobacco.
There’s no timeline on lifting the prohibition. Other Liberal justice issues – notably the implementation of physician-assisted suicide, the inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, and criminal justice reforms – are more urgent priorities.
A November poll by Forum Research suggests 59 per cent of Canadians favour legalization and about one-third of the nation’s adults – six to seven million – plan to indulge in the psychoactive pleasure once it’s no longer a crime.
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott says a task force will gather information about how marijuana could be sold; age limits; and police enforcement issues (trafficking will remain a crime). But she offered no timeline. In Ontario, Premier Kathleen Wynne suggests provincial liquor stores could start retailing government-certified – and taxed – ganja.
In the meantime, the 426-page Cannabis Report of the Le Dain commission, headed by Gerald Le Dain, then-dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, remains an insightful guide, even if some of its psychedelic language is démodé. (“Cannabis” denotes both marijuana and hashish.)
Convictions for simple pot possession exploded: from 431 in 1967 to 5,399 in 1970 and 8,389 in 1971. More than half were against otherwise law-abiding baby boomers under 21 who would now carry criminal records along with their university degrees.
In May 1972, a federal commission of inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs handed an audacious recommendation to the government of then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, whose flower-child bride, Margaret, was smoking weed behind the backs of her RCMP bodyguards.
After two years of public hearings, including testimony from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the Le Dain commission said laws against simple possession of marijuana and hashish should be abolished in the face of a blossoming social attitude among a growing minority of people that grass was relatively harmless. It stopped short of saying the stuff should be made legally available and consumed.
Part of the climate of acceptance was attributed to the expanding influence of rock radio and music such as Black Sabbath’s 1971 stoner anthem “Sweet Leaf.”
But it was the heavy-handed use of criminal law to suppress the youthful pursuit of a buzz that offended many people’s sense of justice and threatened to erode the moral authority of the law, the commission said.
“The use of cannabis is a problem but so also is the present use of the criminal law to suppress it. It is clear that the law has had no serious effect on this issue. There can be no doubt that the law on the books is at extreme variance with the facts. It is simply not a feasible policy in the long run.”
Forty-three years later, recognition of pot’s reality has arrived. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government will do what his father’s would not by legitimizing simple possession of recreational marijuana and regulating its sale, like alcohol and tobacco.
There’s no timeline on lifting the prohibition. Other Liberal justice issues – notably the implementation of physician-assisted suicide, the inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, and criminal justice reforms – are more urgent priorities.
A November poll by Forum Research suggests 59 per cent of Canadians favour legalization and about one-third of the nation’s adults – six to seven million – plan to indulge in the psychoactive pleasure once it’s no longer a crime.
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott says a task force will gather information about how marijuana could be sold; age limits; and police enforcement issues (trafficking will remain a crime). But she offered no timeline. In Ontario, Premier Kathleen Wynne suggests provincial liquor stores could start retailing government-certified – and taxed – ganja.
In the meantime, the 426-page Cannabis Report of the Le Dain commission, headed by Gerald Le Dain, then-dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, remains an insightful guide, even if some of its psychedelic language is démodé. (“Cannabis” denotes both marijuana and hashish.)
