on December 6, 2013
These days some think a total repeal of Canada's drug laws is inevitable. We look at how the drug laws put in 90 years ago were based on panic and racism as opposed to science or medicine
Searching for the scientific origins of Canada’s marijuana prohibition is a quick exercise. There was no science used to justify the laws instituted 90 years ago, just a mess of panic, racism and accident that has metastasized over time.
Today we are in an unlikely position. American jurisdictions have begun to craft new pot policies. But Canada lumbers on, even strengthening the legislation it inherited from an era of confusion.
Yet there was one moment midway between then and now when it seemed like everything might change. In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government struck a royal commission and tasked it with an evidence-based examination of drug use and policy. The Le Dain Commission — named after its chairman, future Supreme Court justice Gerald Le Dain — signaled to observers that the country was on the cusp of regulatory revolution.
It certainly did to John Lennon.
“This is the opportunity for Canada to lead the world,” the Beatle testified three days before Christmas that year.
Lennon, his wife Yoko Ono, and a handful of Le Dain Commission officials were sitting in the couple’s private railway car in the Montreal train station. For 90 minutes, according to a transcript of the testimony unearthed by fan John Whelan for the Ottawa Beatles Site, Lennon enthusiastically shared his thoughts.
“I must say,” the musician began, “this commission that you’ve set up . . . I don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the world, you know, in reality, towards drugs, but this seems to be the only one that is trying to find out what it’s about with any kind of sanity.”
Timeline: Marijuana in Canada
Mysterious pot study of 1972
The Le Dain Commission’s findings wouldn’t have disappointed him. The ensuing decades — four exactly in December — would have.
After 55 months of exhaustive research, the commissioners found the penalties for marijuana to be “grossly excessive.” They recommended decriminalizing possession and drastically lessening charges for trafficking.
The passage of time has only reinforced that finding. As a 2002 Senate study reported, “The (Le Dain) Commission concluded that the criminalization of cannabis had no scientific basis. We confirm this conclusion and add that continued criminalization of cannabis remains unjustified based on scientific data on the danger it poses.”
Yet the report was ignored by politicians and largely forgotten by the public. In the 40 years since, Canadian police forces have recorded at least two million marijuana-related violations. Last year the Harper government introduced mandatory minimum sentences for growing as few as six pot plants.
Some experts believe a repeal of pot prohibition has become inevitable. Colorado and Washington state have recently legalized or decriminalized it. Trudeau’s son Justin, the federal Liberal leader, has promised to do the same.
A student of history might recall another time when reform felt inevitable, too.
Anti-Chinese, anti-drugs
Drug prohibition has been described as an experiment of the 20th century. Until 1908 in Canada, it was possible to buy opium, cocaine and morphine from a pharmacy; Prairie farmers once planted hemp as a windbreaker for crops.
But in the early 1900s, the temperance movement was gaining momentum alongside growing hostility towards Asian immigrants. Opium was an initial target, but it didn’t take long for marijuana to be engulfed.
On Sept. 7, 1907, in Vancouver, a rally of the xenophobic Asiatic Exclusion League boiled over into a riot. The mob, more than 10,000 white men, stormed the city’s Chinese and Japanese enclaves, throwing some immigrants in the harbour and damaging every Asian business they could find.
“Not a Chinese window was missed,” one local newspaper reported.
When business owners asked the government for compensation, William Lyon Mackenzie King — then deputy labour minister — was sent to investigate. King was shocked to discover the claimants included legal opium manufacturers. Some Chinese groups asked for help discouraging use of the drug. King returned to Ottawa and wrote a report on opium, including a warning it was catching on with white women and girls.
In 1908 the labour minister tabled a bill prohibiting the manufacture, sale or import of opium except for medicinal purposes.
Canada’s first drug law was passed without debate.
Penalties were light, however. Even in 1911 when morphine and cocaine were rolled into the act, maximum jail times for sale or possession stood at one year, and fines were much more common.
Read more on
https://www.facebook.com/Canadian420nurses
Searching for the scientific origins of Canada’s marijuana prohibition is a quick exercise. There was no science used to justify the laws instituted 90 years ago, just a mess of panic, racism and accident that has metastasized over time.
Today we are in an unlikely position. American jurisdictions have begun to craft new pot policies. But Canada lumbers on, even strengthening the legislation it inherited from an era of confusion.
Yet there was one moment midway between then and now when it seemed like everything might change. In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government struck a royal commission and tasked it with an evidence-based examination of drug use and policy. The Le Dain Commission — named after its chairman, future Supreme Court justice Gerald Le Dain — signaled to observers that the country was on the cusp of regulatory revolution.
It certainly did to John Lennon.
“This is the opportunity for Canada to lead the world,” the Beatle testified three days before Christmas that year.
Lennon, his wife Yoko Ono, and a handful of Le Dain Commission officials were sitting in the couple’s private railway car in the Montreal train station. For 90 minutes, according to a transcript of the testimony unearthed by fan John Whelan for the Ottawa Beatles Site, Lennon enthusiastically shared his thoughts.
“I must say,” the musician began, “this commission that you’ve set up . . . I don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the world, you know, in reality, towards drugs, but this seems to be the only one that is trying to find out what it’s about with any kind of sanity.”
Timeline: Marijuana in Canada
Mysterious pot study of 1972
The Le Dain Commission’s findings wouldn’t have disappointed him. The ensuing decades — four exactly in December — would have.
After 55 months of exhaustive research, the commissioners found the penalties for marijuana to be “grossly excessive.” They recommended decriminalizing possession and drastically lessening charges for trafficking.
The passage of time has only reinforced that finding. As a 2002 Senate study reported, “The (Le Dain) Commission concluded that the criminalization of cannabis had no scientific basis. We confirm this conclusion and add that continued criminalization of cannabis remains unjustified based on scientific data on the danger it poses.”
Yet the report was ignored by politicians and largely forgotten by the public. In the 40 years since, Canadian police forces have recorded at least two million marijuana-related violations. Last year the Harper government introduced mandatory minimum sentences for growing as few as six pot plants.
Some experts believe a repeal of pot prohibition has become inevitable. Colorado and Washington state have recently legalized or decriminalized it. Trudeau’s son Justin, the federal Liberal leader, has promised to do the same.
A student of history might recall another time when reform felt inevitable, too.
Anti-Chinese, anti-drugs
Drug prohibition has been described as an experiment of the 20th century. Until 1908 in Canada, it was possible to buy opium, cocaine and morphine from a pharmacy; Prairie farmers once planted hemp as a windbreaker for crops.
But in the early 1900s, the temperance movement was gaining momentum alongside growing hostility towards Asian immigrants. Opium was an initial target, but it didn’t take long for marijuana to be engulfed.
On Sept. 7, 1907, in Vancouver, a rally of the xenophobic Asiatic Exclusion League boiled over into a riot. The mob, more than 10,000 white men, stormed the city’s Chinese and Japanese enclaves, throwing some immigrants in the harbour and damaging every Asian business they could find.
“Not a Chinese window was missed,” one local newspaper reported.
When business owners asked the government for compensation, William Lyon Mackenzie King — then deputy labour minister — was sent to investigate. King was shocked to discover the claimants included legal opium manufacturers. Some Chinese groups asked for help discouraging use of the drug. King returned to Ottawa and wrote a report on opium, including a warning it was catching on with white women and girls.
In 1908 the labour minister tabled a bill prohibiting the manufacture, sale or import of opium except for medicinal purposes.
Canada’s first drug law was passed without debate.
Penalties were light, however. Even in 1911 when morphine and cocaine were rolled into the act, maximum jail times for sale or possession stood at one year, and fines were much more common.
Read more on
https://www.facebook.com/Canadian420nurses
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