"INCARCEREX" - Do Not Mix With The Charter Or Common Sense

Tonight was so very sad, justice in Canada has suffered a terrible blow!

Ottawa mum on cost to provinces as crime bill clears House

Because we all know, the Conservatives are “Tough on Crime!“


"INCARCEREX" - Do Not Mix With The Charter or Common Sense - Made before the second last election but still spot on relevant today.

The Liberals have already officially responded:

POSTED ON DECEMBER 5, 2011

OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Bob Rae made the following statement today on Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill:

“I want to salute the hard work of our friend and colleague Irwin Cotler, the Liberal Justice and Human Rights critic, who has worked tirelessly to try to improve this legislation for the benefit of all Canadians. He introduced amendments to get tougher on terrorists. He introduced amendments to incorporate the needs and views of Quebec. Unfortunately, his expert advice and work were almost completely ignored – the only exception being when the Conservatives tried to re-introduce Mr. Cotler’s sensible amendments on terrorism as their own, despite having first rejected them without explanation.

Mr. Cotler continued:

“The Conservatives’ bundling together of 9 bills that warranted independent discussion, their shutting down of debate in committee, and their rejection of all amendments while arrogantly labeling others as supporters of criminals and not victims, undermines Parliament and democratic process. They have rammed through the House of Commons a law and order agenda that is poorly thought-out, rushed and demonstrates the Conservative commitment to governing by ideology instead of facts and evidence.

This bill will impose mandatory minimums that will turn young offenders into hardened criminals. It fails the mentally ill, aboriginal people, visible minorities and the poor. It repeats the mistakes of failed, expensive and discredited American crime policy. Police and prisons officials from states like Texas are telling Mr. Harper very clearly: We tried what you are doing but it drained the public coffers and made our communities less safe. Do not go down our failed path.

At the end of the day we will have more crime, less justice, skyrocketing costs, prison overcrowding, less rehabilitation for the offenders, less protection for victims and less protection for the public. Liberals are committed to pursuing a crime and justice approach that is evidence-based, cost effective and focused on preventing crime and victimization.”

Please also visit It Could Get Worse for different ways you can still help "Kill the Bill".

The disappointment in the MP's who voted for this "Everything plus the kitchen sink" Bill has me cranky, up late, and tired. *sigh*.......


UPDATE: March 12, 2012: As expected, the Conservatives ignore experience, evidence and experts, they have their ideology, Damnit!

Harper’s promise fulfilled as House passes crime bill

Sad days ahead for Canada, indeed....

Harper Stacked Conservative Senate Dangerously Stupid On Crime

The Canadian (Conservative stacked) Senate has obviously disregarded all of the experts who testified against Bill S-10 during Senate Committee hearings, regardless of the evidence and research presented that proves that not only do mandatory minimums for drugs not work - they, along with draconian prohibition laws, cause MORE HARM than good to our society!

Senate Quietly Passes Bill S-10 and Mandatory Minimums For Marijuana


Parents, this is not a bill aimed strictly at cartel kingpins as the Tories would have you believe. No, this wolf in sheep's clothing will have our sons and daughters, aka "easy police prey", thrown in prison because they prefer to use cannabis, a much safer substance than legal alcohol and nicotine filled cigarettes. Many college students will grow a small amount of plants for themselves and a few friends so they don't have to come into contact with drug dealers, certainly this is not Organized Crime! Under Bill S-10 the "serious crime" of baking a batch of Pot Brownies will demand a judge hand down a mandatory minimum sentence of no less than 18 months imprisonment (Seriously.) and even the simple action of passing a joint is deemed "drug trafficking".

I've stated many times throughout my blog that of course we would prefer our youth to not use any drugs at all, be it alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, cannabis, oxycondon, ecstasy, etc. But the reality is that many will experiment (as millions of us did in our youth) with different substances. In this case, we certainly wish that if they are unfortunately caught by police, they NOT be persecuted and sent to prison with violent criminals! And if your child fell victim to drug addiction, would you rather them receive counselling and rehabilitative help? Or be locked up and punished alongside dangerous felons?

Stand up, Canadian Parents! It's time to get educated - we must refute ideological drug war rhetoric and defend the civil rights and safety of our children! Prohibition legislation creates and causes violence in our neighbourhoods. Let's be the "Smart On Crime" Generation that demands our government put public safety and common sense first - we can start by defeating Bill S-10 in the House of Commons. I ask that you please contact your Member of Parliament and request that they do the right thing by our kids and fellow Canadians and VOTE NO on Bill S-10!!!



U.S. Surgeon Gen Joycelyn Elders: Legalize Marijuana!
"We Criminalize People At The Highest Rate In The World!"


"Incarcerex" - Steve's solution to fill Canadian taxpayer
funded prisons with cannabis consumers.

To learn more about Bill S-10, please visit http://www.WhyProhibition.ca/s10 , http://www.cannabisfacts.ca/mandatoryminimums.html , sign the Petition and also read another post I wrote "Look! Over There! A Shiny Thing!!!" - written before Stephen Harper stacked the unelected Senate with Conservatives. (so much for "Sober Second Thought!")

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‎"When the public is provided with more information regarding the law and the circumstances surrounding the offense and the offender, the tendency is not to favour punitive sanctions such as mandatory minimum sentences." ~ "Mandatory Sentences of Imprisonment in Common Law Jurisdictions: Some Representative Models"

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"Cannabis use, however, was generally infrequent, with 45.7% of previous-year users reporting use two or fewer times during the previous three months. In addition, most users did not report experiencing serious harm due to their cannabis use."

"For the general population of Canadians, the use of illicit drugs was usually limited to cannabis only. About 28.7% of Canadians reported using only cannabis during their lifetime, and 11.5% used only cannabis during the previous year."

"According to a 2009 report by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, health-related costs per user are eight times higher for drinkers than they are for those who use cannabis, and are more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers. It states: “In terms of (health-related) costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user.”

"The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) has also published a document outlining the relationship between the perceived seriousness and the actual costs of substance abuse in Canada. The study found that, while the total social costs associated with alcohol are more than twice those for all other illicit drugs, the public consistently rated the overall seriousness of illicit drugs as higher in the Canadian Addiction Survey.

The reasons for this misperception may relate to the fact that alcohol is a legal, socially accepted product that is regularly used by the vast majority of Canadians. While over 90% of Canadians have direct, personal experience with alcohol, only 3% of CAS respondents reported past-year use of the five most popular illicit drugs, so perceptions of risk will likely be inflated for these substances due to the unfamiliarity factor. The CCSA also points to the police, concerned citizen groups, political leaders and policy makers as those involved in amplifying the perceptions of the risks associated with illicit drug abuse.**"

Mark Ertel, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa, has said that the measures would strip judges of the ability to apply discretion for mitigating circumstances and could turn Canadian correctional institutions and penitentiaries into US-style inmate warehouses.65 Mr. Ertel argues that automatic jail sentences, with no allowance for mitigating considerations, will inevitably prompt the kind of appeal that led to a 1987 Supreme Court of Canada decision (R. v. Smith) striking down a seven-year mandatory minimum sentence under the now-repealed Narcotic Control Act as cruel and unusual punishment. He also argues that the bill targets the wrong problem as almost all violent crime is alcohol-related, yet liquor manufacturers will not be prosecuted**.

Some opponents of the mandatory sentencing that is a feature of the drug bills have noted that the increase in costs to operate prisons will draw funds away from social programs, like those addressing improved education, health care and child poverty, which reduce crime. Incarceration is seen as poor stewardship of both money and human resources.**

Other opponents of mandatory minimum sentencing have taken note of the fact that the United States, which has championed the use of such sentences for many years, is, in some cases, moving away from them. The thinking is that by depriving judges of discretion and forcing them to apply rigid and arbitrary sentencing rules, the United States built irrationality into its justice system. Yet, even though American courts mete out sentences that are double that of British and three times that of Canadian courts, the US violent crime rate is higher than in those two countries.

In addition, while crime rates in both Canada and the United States have fallen by almost the same amount in recent years, the incarceration rates in the two countries have followed different patterns: in Canada, unlike in the US, there has been no substantial increase in the size of the prison population.

One editorial has noted that, despite 25 years of harsh mandatory minimums, disproportionate numbers of the poor, the young, minorities and the drug addicted have been thrown in US jails with no impact on the drug business itself, which has flourished**.

Opponents of mandatory minimum sentences point to two Department of Justice studies that conclude that such laws are not effective and are increasingly unpopular as crime-fighting measures in other countries. A 2005 study concluded: “There is some indication that minimum sentences are not an effective sentencing tool: that is, they constrain judicial discretion without offering any increased crime prevention benefits.”

A 2002 study, meanwhile, found that mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to deter crime. The reasons for this lack of deterrence include the fact that they bar judges from using their discretion to sentence individuals. As a result, prosecutors and police take up the discretionary role, often choosing not to charge people with offences that would automatically lead to a prison term. Mandatory minimum sentences also sometimes lower conviction rates, as juries refuse to convict accused people facing automatic but seemingly unfair prison terms. Furthermore, while these types of sentences show success in deterring firearms or drunk driving crimes, they appear to have no impact on drug crime. ~
No. 40-3-S10E Legislative Summary of Bill S-10: An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

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In terms of social costs, the vast majority of the social costs of cannabis are enforcement-related while the vast majority of tobacco costs are health-related. The social costs of alcohol are about evenly distributed between health care and enforcement.

In terms of costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user. On the enforcement side, costs for cannabis are the highest at $328 per user—94% of social costs for cannabis are linked to enforcement.** Enforcement costs per user for alcohol are about half those for cannabis ($153), while enforcement costs for tobacco are very low.

The harms, risks and social costs of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco vary greatly. A lot has to do with how the substances are handled legally. Alcohol and tobacco are legal substances, which explain their low enforcement costs relative to cannabis. On the other hand, the health costs per user of tobacco and alcohol are much higher than for cannabis. This may indicate that cannabis use involves fewer health risks than alcohol or tobacco. These variations in risk, harms and costs need to be taken into account as we think about further efforts to deal with the use of these three substances in Canada. Efforts to reduce social costs related to cannabis, for example, will likely involve shifting its legal status by decriminalizing casual use, to reduce the high enforcement costs. Such a shift may be warranted given the apparent lower health risk associated with most cannabis use.**" ~ Cannabis, Tobacco and Alcohol Use in Canada, Comparing risks of harm and costs to society

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" The evidence is clear, Cannabis has no lethal dose**, so you can't die from it. The impact on the brain structure for cannabis is nil, but there can be very serious brain function changes with alcohol abuse. Also, more dramatic liver functions are impaired with alcohol. Malnutrition, B-vitamin deficiency, and Korsakoff's Disorder are all linked to alcohol, but not cannabis." ~ Dr. Mitch Earleywine, University of Southern California psychologist, author of "Pot Politics: Marijuana and the Costs of Prohibition","Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence" and "Mind-Altering Drugs: The Science of Subjective Experience."

Please also watch this interview with Dr. Earlywine: SHOW 18: Dr. Mitch Earleywine - Parents' Guide to Marijuana.

And just a little more "fyi":

Kelly McParland: Stockwell Day’s criminal logic

I’m trying hard to take Stockwell Day’s warnings about unreported crime and the need for more jails seriously — I really am — but I can’t say I’m having much luck.

Maybe it’s the linkage that’s causing the trouble, as in, there isn’t any.

Mr. Day maintains that Canada needs more prisons. Specifically, he wants to spent $9 billion building more penitentiaries to hold all the criminals the Harper government intends to round up thanks to its tough-on-crime legislation.

But statistics show that crime is going down. The most recent report, released just a few weeks ago, shows a 17% drop from a decade ago, continuing a trend that has shown an ongoing decline in crime figures for the past ten years.

The data released by Statistics Canada … shows that the overwhelming number of criminal charges involved nonviolent offences. More than 45% of all offences reported in 2009 were for minor thefts such as shoplifting, or mischief. There were still nearly 50,000 people charged with possession of marijuana.

In contrast, homicides, attempted murder, serious sexual assaults and crimes against children, made up less than one quarter of one per cent of all reported offences.

Yet another indicator, the Crime Severity Index, which is a weighted average of criminal offences, is down 22% from the level in 1999.

So why spend billions building prisons when crime is decreasing? Because, claims Mr. Day, unreported crime is rising. And he knows this because Statistics Canada also has a measure that keeps track of crime victims, as opposed to crime reports, and calculates the gap.

The noise you hear is Absurdious, the God of Irony, being stomped to death under the jackboots of Stockwellian logic. First of all, as you may have heard, the Conservatives are in the middle of cancelling the collection of mandatory census data, arguing that voluntary data is just as good. But here we have Minister Day dismissing crime statistics — which are reported voluntarily — as unreliable. (Not all crime stats, mind, just the crime stats he doesn’t like. The crime stats he does like, the ones on unreported crime, are entirely trustworthy.)

Second, if the crimes are unreported, the perpetrators must be unarrested, and therefor the construction of prisons to hold them becomes just a little bit redundant, wouldn’t you say?

Mr. Day, who had managed to re-establish his reputation after his disastrous turn as Canadian Alliance party leader, is getting killed in editorial pages across the country. Montreal’s Gazette wrote that it was disconcerting to see him “scrape the bottom of the logical barrel -indeed, break right through the bottom of it” in trying to justify his prison budget. “Day’s interpretation of statistics is a crime,” said the Edmonton Journal, woy out there in Harper country. Several blogs quoted Mr. Day’s own convoluted words so readers could try to figure out or themselves what he was attempting to say.

Don’t bother. The answer is easy: The Conservatives think tough-on-crime sells well with voters, and if that means building prisons to house non-prisoners for unreported crime, well, who are they to argue? And never mind the eloquent case put forward by the recently-released Conrad Black, who made a powerful argument against following the U.S. down the road of prisons stuffed with oversentenced underlings wasting away at immense cost, with little benefit to the overall good of society.

Nope, logic isn’t going to get us anywhere on this one, folks. You just have to take it on faith. If, that is, you have that much faith in Mr. Day.

National Post
Shared under Educational Fair Use (See below)


**Cannabis has no lethal dose**:

"No acute lethal overdoses of cannabis are known, in contrast to several of its illegal (for example, cocaine) and legal (for example, alcohol, aspirin, acetaminophen) counterparts." - Stephen Sidney, M.D., associate director for clinical research at Kaiser Permanente, in an editorial published 9/20/03 in the British Medical Journal (Vol. 327, pp. 635-635)

"Unlike many of the drugs we prescribe every day, marijuana has never been proven to cause a fatal overdose." - Joycelyn Elders, M.D., former U.S. Surgeon General, in a 3/26/04 editorial published in Rhode Island's Providence Journal

"The estimated lethal human dose of intravenous Marinol is 30 mg/kg (2100 mg/70 kg). Using this estimation of lethal dose, the equivalent inhaled THC would represent the smoking of 240 cannabis cigarettes with total systemic absorption of the average 8.8 mg of THC in each cigarette.

"Since absorption is much less than 100 percent, the amount of smoked marijuana required to reach lethality is on the order of one to two thousand cigarettes."

"The physical impossibility of a fatal overdose using smoked cannabis is obvious." - Denis Petro, M.D., in his 1997 paper "Pharmacology and Toxicity of Cannabis", published in the book "Cannabis in Medical Practice - A Legal, Historical and Pharmacological Overview of the Therapeutic Use of Marijuana", pg 62

"Marijuana has been used as a medicinal herb for thousands of years, going back to ancient civilizations in Egypt, India and Africa. In all that time, up to and including the present day, there has never been a report of a fatality directly due to the consumption of marijuana.

"In contrast, over 1,000 people die annually in the US from an overdose of our most common non-prescription drug, aspirin. In addition, many thousands of deaths result from the legal prescription drugs.

"After hearing two year's worth of evidence on the presumed dangers of marijuana, DEA Judge Francis L. Young said this: 'marijuana is the safest therapeutically active substance known to man ... safer than many foods we commonly consume.'" - Bill Zimmerman, Executive Director of Americans for Medical Rights

"Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage 50% of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity...

"At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means in order to induce death, a smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette.

"NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately 0.9 grams. A smoker would have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal response. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity." - Judge Francis L. Young wrote in a 1988 decision

"A commonly used over-the-counter product like aspirin has a therapeutic ratio of around 1:20. Two aspirins are the recommended dose for adult patients. Twenty times this dose, forty aspirins, may cause a lethal reaction in some patients and will almost certainly cause gross injury to the digestive system...

"By contrast, marijuana's therapeutic ratio... is impossible to quantify because it is so high." - Judge Francis L. Young wrote in a 1988 decision

"No one has ever died of THC [marijuana] poisoning, mostly because a 160-lb. person would have to smoke roughly 900 joints in a sitting to reach a lethal dose." - Time Magazine in a Nov. 4, 2002 cover story

"Death by overdose isn’t the only danger that drugs present, but it is one important measure. In fact, a study conducted by Kaiser Permanente from 1979-1985 with a follow-up in 1991 found no correlation between marijuana use and death, evidence that even heavy marijuana use for decades does not appear to be associated with major health risks, whereas heavy alcohol users will develop cirrhosis and other potentially fatal conditions." - David Borden, Executive Director of The Drug Reform Coordination Network, wrote MedMJpro/con

Meanwhile......

Prescription narcotics cause more deaths than both heroin and cocaine

TORONTO, December 7, 2009 - Deaths related to narcotic pain relievers have doubled since 1991: Study

Statistics prove prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists

Side Effects May Include...Coma or Death?!

Big $$$, Big Pharma

I'm just sayin'...

**Bolding is mine

MP Shelly Glover is Not4Me!

"I ask, what parent in their right mind would have their child thrown in prison amongst truly violent criminals for the "crime" of using drugs?"

This week the Conservative Government released an over the top commercial about your little Bieber-loving teeny bopper getting hooked on drugs. (All of 'em?) Before we know it, she's cutting herself, flashing ghastly lip sores and for some reason is sporting a really bad dye job.

The following is an expansion of my original response to the Maclean's post: Just say no after Shelly Glover went cherry picking in the House of Commons and touting "DARE 2.0":

Prohibition does not keep drugs out of our children's hands. Prohibition leaves drugs to be controlled by the black market, and we all know that drug dealers don't ask for ID. If our Government was truly serious about keeping drugs out of the hands of minors it would legalize and regulate the sale to adults. Any teen will tell you they can purchase pot much more easily than they can get alcohol and cigarettes, because the sale of those substances are controlled.

Shelly Glover needs to do some reading. "Summary from The 2002 Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs:

Many substances, including some common foods, have some level of toxicity. Cannabis presents almost no toxicity and cannot lead to an overdose.

~ Cannabis itself is not a cause of other drug use. In this sense, we reject the gateway theory.

The relationship between cannabis use and delinquency and crime, based on research evidence, we concluded that:

~ Cannabis itself is not a cause of delinquency and crime; and
~ Cannabis is not a cause of violence.
~ Early drug legislation was largely based on a moral panic, racist sentiment and a notorious absence of debate"

Moms, (and Dad's too!) we have to stand up and demand our politicians and police focus on REAL Crime that does hurt our kids, like child abusers and paedophiles. Parents should be demanding the MILLIONS of dollars our government spends every year on enforcing pot growers (Which also entails sending helicopters to search for plants. Say that back to yourself - "sending helicopters to search for plants...". While our country is drowning in the Conservative caused Ocean of Debt your tax dollars are being spent to send cops to fly expensive-to-run machines through the sky to find PLANTS to rip out of the ground after they are spotted. Mother Nature must be so proud!) instead be put towards catching child predators.

It's quite disturbing the Conservatives would rather shovel money towards escalating enforcement and incarceration of cannabis consumers, instead of FACTUAL education and programs that will help kids in our communities. How many universities could have been built (with billions of your tax dollars) while the hellbent Tories are busy planning, implementing and executing prison expansions? How many scholarships for Canadian kids could have been paid for? How many treatment spots would exist for those who desperately need help for addiction instead of the government spending your hard-earned money for enforcement, court, lawyer, incarceration and probation costs of cannabis users?

"As for the jails, who will fill them? she asked. “Is it a case of build it and they will come?”

She suspects what they’ll do to fill those jails is just lower the criminal bar so they will have enough people to fill the jails.
And then they can say,
we told you so." ~ Margaret Atwood, Atwood launches assault on gov't with razor-sharp wit

I am truly appalled that we have politicians that trample on our individual freedom and rights, they perpetrate this con under the guise of being "Tough on Crime!". Well, I want our politicians to be SMART about crime and focus their legislative efforts on incarcerating those who truly are a danger to our society. Canadian Moms & Dads, (Grandparents too!) we have to be vocal in this fight, we have to let our parental voices be heard - we deserve to have common sense drug policy in Canada and imprisoning our young people for using or selling a plant is wholly criminal in itself. I ask, what parent in their right mind would have their child thrown in prison amongst truly violent criminals for the "crime" of using drugs?

Our neighbours to the south who have literally 4 more decades of harsher drug laws and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing experience than us have demonstrated that the: "Drug War Continues to Fail Spectacularly - AP: IMPACT: After 40 years, $1 TRILLION, US War on Drugs has failed to meet any of its goals"

I implore my fellow Canadians to learn about Bill S-10 (formerly C-15), and please take note that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has yet to provide evidence to support this horrendous law. Under Bill S-10 simply baking a batch of pot brownies will get you sentenced to a MINIMUM 18 MONTHS (!!!) in jail, and judges will have NO discretion, no choice but to hand out that insane sentence.

"Calling the Tories Out on Bill C-15 - "The Politics of Fear": http://maryjanecannabian.blogspot.com/2009/11/cal...

"Bill S-10 ~ New Name For Bad Law": http://maryjanecannabian.blogspot.com/2010/05/bil...

"Canadians: Get Up! Stand Up!": http://bit.ly/15enP9 Talkin' "Smart On Crime" post from June 2009

Please contact your Senators and MPs and request they be SMART about crime and vote NO on Bill S-10! For more info visit CannabisFacts.ca S-10 info page and www.whyprohibition.ca.


You may be a mother, Shelly Glover, but you certainly don't speak for me. You see, I like to enlist common sense and listen to things like facts, and evidence regarding drug policy. You can bleat to the sheeple "What about the children!?" all you want, but any Mom who cares enough to put knee-jerk reaction aside in favour of careful research will agree with me - Cannabis Prohibition causes way more harm to our society than actual drug use does. Of course we don't want kids to use drugs, and responsible parents will educate themselves about all drugs, licit and illicit, so we can give our kids the honest to goodness truth and real facts about all drugs because really, it's not the governments job. While I appreciate education about drugs as a public service, our children deserve such important information presented truthfully. If you lie about cannabis, kids are going to think you also lie about much more dangerous drugs, and that in itself is grossly irresponsible!

For parents looking for real facts about drugs, two great sites are Canadian Students For Sensible Drug Policy, who has countered the Conservatives with their own Not4Me website: and CannabisFacts.ca .

www.not4me.org Media Conference April 13, 2010 Part 1:


Part 2:

On April 13, 2010, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) held a media conference discussing the launch of www.not4me.org, a drug education website created in response to the government's inadequate 'Drugs not4me' campaign. Instead of fear and negative stigma, CSSDP created a drug information website based on honest information and including harm reduction tips. Part 1 features CSSDP staff member Caleb Chepesiuk discussing the shortfalls of the federal government's approach. Part 2 features CSSDP board of directors member Tamara Kalnins discussing www.not4me.org


Neill Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico, talk about the futility, violence and devastation to children caused by the War on Drugs as well as the availability of tested, safe alternatives. ~ Watch Part 2: Retired cop and former Governor speak out against War on Drugs . Find more great LEAP videos here: CopsSayLegalizeDrugs YouTube channel.

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Addendum

Realistically only a small percent(1) of Canadians develop an addiction to hard drugs, and because I actually took the time to attend an informative presentation/meeting about InSite I recall a cruel truth - a harsh fact is that many hard drug users are sadly*victims of violence, people who had been physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, who had witnessed violence, or who had family members with alcohol or substance abuse problems.

"Poverty, homelessness, lack of education, family dysfunction and parental substance misuse, mental health problems, and a history of child abuse are all social determinants that place people at higher risk of misusing drugs or of injecting drugs.

Individuals who develop alcohol and other drug addiction are still stigmatized in Canadian society. Canadians who inject drugs are even more stigmatized, as they are, by and large, rejected by society because of the illegal nature of their behaviour, their sometimes disorganized lives, and their vulnerability to diseases. They are often labeled as difficult to manage, disruptive and manipulative. A significant portion of society views them as lesser persons - criminals and derelicts. These attitudes and misconceptions have resulted in a variety of harms, including public apathy, undiagnosed mental illness and inaccessible treatment (2) and rehabilitation programs.

It is estimated that up to 125,000 people in this country inject drugs. This includes an estimated 25,000 Canadians who inject steroids. "
~ Where did I find this? Why, right here.

Unfortunately:

"About 73% of federal dollars on drug policy in Canada go toward enforcement. Only 2.6% goes to prevention, only 2.6% goes to harm reduction and about 14% to treatment. That is a very uneven balance."
~ MP Libby Davies

Updated Nov. 21st to include the Margaret Atwood article.

UPDATE 2: November 24th.
MP Marlene Jennings, Official Opposition Critic for Justice and the Attorney General, has released this statement on criminal justice concerning the punitive, tunnel-vision "Tough on Crime!" Torie mantra. Here is an excerpt:

"In the 2010 budget the government slashed Grants for the Victims of Crime Initiative by 43% and the Contributions to the Victims of Crime Initiative by 34%. This money would have gone directly to community groups that help victims recover from trauma. Furthermore, the government’s Fall 2010 advertising report showed that $6 million was set aside to produce an advertising campaign directed at victims of crime, while funding for the Victims of Crime Initiative last year amounted to just under $4 million. The ad campaign is shockingly hypocritical, since the Conservatives have spent more money on the ads than they have on actual initiatives to help victims of crime."**

Update 3:‎"Not exactly an accurate reflection"
Critics slam the Tories’ new anti-drug campaign, Macleans magazine, December 3, 2010.

UPDATE 4: The Conservative Government has decided to roll all of their crime bills into one huge Omnibus Bill and have vowed to pass this within 100 days of Parliament resuming. Read Goar: Timely warning for Canada about prisons and please visit CannabisFacts.ca to find out more. You can also contact your Member of Parliament regarding the Omnibus Bill - let them know we do not want Canadians to suffer the dire consequences of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing!
Blog updated/edited September 17, 2011.

Update 5 October 27, 2011: New post up about Omnibus Bill C-10, "Canadians: Don't Be Tricked by the "Safe Streets and Communities Act"
- It's Omnibusted!" ~ http://maryjanecannabian.blogspot.com/2011/09/canadians-dont-be-tricked-by-safe.html
and Parents PLEASE READ "The mandatory minimum mess" by Dan Gardner: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/mandatory+minimum+mess/5559692/story.html
Excerpt:
"And remember the phrase "real property that belongs to a third party"? That's what a rented apartment is. Imagine a university student living in a rented apartment with her boyfriend, suggests University of Toronto criminologist Tony Doob. She grows a single marijuana plant. She rolls a joint for her and her boyfriend. And just like that she's a "trafficker" subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of nine months in jail.

Are these outcomes simple, clear, and predictable? Hardly. They're shocking as hell. But mandatory minimums have a nasty tendency to do that."

UPDATE 6 Nov. 23/11: A MUST READ FOR ALL PARENTS! Tories’ crime legislation turns teens sharing marijuana into ‘organized criminals’

"Incarcerating people for relatively minor marijuana offences is “cracking a nut with a sledgehammer.”

I'm asking all Moms (and Dad's and Grandparents too!) to participate in a Bill C-10 Protest: via @Leadnow:Canadians are standing together against a fill-the-prisons approach to justice that has failed everywhere it’s been tried.

Join a coalition of groups for two days of action to speak out against the cruel Crime Bill. Time is running out to make Canada safer, not meaner - we need you to help us all make a big impact.

Where: Our MP’s local constituency offices.

When: Focus on Thursday at 1pm, with actions throughout Thursday and Friday.

We’re going to tell our MPs: Don’t mess up like Texas. Stop the cruel Crime Bill.

Go to http://www.leadnow.ca/stop-the-crime-bill to find out the location closest to you. Thanks, MaryJane.

Update 3/2013: Sadly, the Omnibus Bill is now law in Canada.
*While Steve didn't say exactly the words in this meme,
he didn't have to; pushing the bill so vehemently proves to us
that he supports Canadians serving jail time
for baking pot brownies (cannabis edibles).

*****

(1)- Canada's population as of November 2010 is
34, 252, 000+ (StatsCan Population Clock)

(2) Mentally ill offenders swamping prisons

**Bolding is mine.

*Several studies demonstrate that raped or sexually assaulted women and adolescents display substantial increases in drug, alcohol, and nicotine use and abuse. Prospective data from the National Women's Study (Kilpatrick, et al., 1997) demonstrate that rape and physical assault increase risk of alcohol and drug abuse in previously non-abusing women.

Investigators have suggested that violence plays a role in adolescent and adult substance abuse. In these conceptualizations, substance use represents a strategy to cope with the stress produced by interpersonal aggression . Hypothetically, distress produced by assault drives individuals to engage in behaviors that reduce negative emotions, such as situational avoidance or drug use . That is, use or abuse of substances following assault may be an effective, but maladaptive, strategy to diminish negative affect. Support for this learning-theory model is provided by studies that demonstrate an association between affect regulation and substance use . The coping theory of substance use presupposes that increased negative affect following exposure to stressors, as opposed to stressor exposure, per se, increases the likelihood and intensity of use. Clinically significant reactions to negative life events, such as those manifested in symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), might be expected to have strong relationship with substance use behaviors. Using data from the National Women's Study (NWS), Epstein, Saunders, Kilpatrick, and Resnick (1998) found support for this hypothesis by demonstrating that the relationship between childhood rape and adult alcohol abuse was mediated by PTSD. ~

Cherry picking, when used figuratively, refers to selective extraction of points in an argument in order to refute or affirm them while ignoring others which will not support the point(s) being made. Often, these cherry-picked factoids or references will be over-extrapolated and oversold to give the impression that they are representative, when they are not.

(Burnam et al., 1988; Kilpatrick et al., 2000; 2003; Miller, Downs, Gondali, & Keil, 1987; Miranda et al., 2002; Polusny & Follette, 1995; Rheingold et al., 2004; Simpson & Miller, 2002). (Kilpatrick et al., 1997).
~ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986828/
( Bean, 1992 ; Brown, 1989 ; Dembo et al., 1987 ; Ireland & Widom, 1994 ;
Lindberg & Distad, 1985 ). ( Kilpatrick, Acierno,
Resnick, Saunders, & Best, 1997 ). (e.g., Brown, 1989 ; Hernandez, 1992 ; Levenson, Oyama, & Meek, 1987 ; Stasiewicz & Maisto, 1993 ; see also Stewart, 1996 ).
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Psy394Q/Behavior%20Therapy%20Class/Assigned%20Readings/Substance%20Abuse/Kilpatrick2000.pdf

Look! Over There! A Shiny Thing!!!"

My Comment addressing: MinisterialSpinWatch: Justice Delayed? Don't blame the Senate. "Justice" Minister Rob Nicholson, spin master extraordinaire, once again trumpets the old "Tough on Crime!" roar the Conservatives love oh-so-much! We all know the Senate didn't *stall or "gut the bill" . (Read here and here about the amendments made to Bill C-15, this is not gutting, this is trying to fix what is already supremely flawed!) And we also know that the biggest roadblock to Conservative crime bills has been TWO Tory prorogations and one election. Nice try Rob, but we ain't fooled. Your attempt at distraction = FAIL. And if you have to depend on a stacked Conservative Senate to pass your crime bills, well, that certainly is a dangerous agenda for all Canadians.

Comment by MaryJCannabian

Bill C-15 is a terrible piece of garbage that never should have made it to the point it did in the first place. Because it's a "crime" bill, the Liberals do not want to fight it because the Tories will accuse them of being "soft on crime". It's all quite ridiculous really, because it is not being soft on crime, fighting the bill is being "Smart about Crime". Unfortunately, The "Tough on Crime" Conservative Mantra resonates with the sheeple that would compare someone who grows two cannabis plants with a child abductor.

I've read Bill C-15, and watched the Senate Committee hearings and read the transcripts when I missed a meeting or two. For any sane and at least half educated person who heard all of the testimony you'd shake your head in disbelief that the Tories even had the audacity to draft such idiotic, draconian, failure inducing legislation.

I wonder how Canadian parents are going to feel when Under Bill C-15 their 18 year olds are sentenced to TWO YEARS in jail for passing a joint (Trafficking) to a 17 year old friend. Bill C-15 takes away all discretion from judges and your precious little Johnny will be in the slammer for a Mandatory Minimum Sentence thanks to Stephen Harper and his punish happy "Justice" while at the same time Steve can sing about gettin' HIGH with his friends at an arts gala, the same thing Johnny did.

From: Calling the Tories Out on Bill C-15 - "The Politics of Fear"

"the Conservatives are intent to supply more "criminals" to fill all the new prisons they plan to build, and the only "evidence", which they failed to produce after repeated requests, is Canadians (all of us?) supposedly asked for Bill C-15. That's it."

FYI, right on the StatsCan Website you will find that crime in Canada has declined over the last 2 decades after its highest level in 1991. I feel that whenever the Tories have the heat on them they love to preach they're "Tough on Crime!" it's like Rudy Giuliani's "9-Eleven!".... The Tories are creating fear among the political apathetic - "Vote for us or you'll be a victim!"... "We're the only party who cares about crime!" .... Yeah, like other parties & people aren't concerned about crime... whatever Steve.

Look! Over there! A shiny thing!


"Incarcerex" - Harper and Nicholson love a good distraction. I'm sure Richard Colvin would agree.

*****

Bill C-15 is not dead - it's on life-support during the Harper prorogue. The Conservatives will be trying to revive this beastly legislation when parliament resumes, do your part to Kill Bill C-15 and put it out of its misery for good. Write your MP's and Canadian Senators to politely ask them to not pass Bill C-15. WhyProhibition.ca has a handy dandy e-mail form pre-addressed to all the Senators in each province for your convenience. Pass It to the Left.

*****

*STALL (from above)
The week of June 25th. senators voted to delay their decision regarding Bill C-15 by a 38-33 vote. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson ranted, accusing Liberal senators of blocking the Conservatives agenda. The following is an excerpt from a June 22nd. feature article from Cannabis Culture magazine:

Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson lashed out at the Senate today, accusing them of blocking the Conservatives so called “law and order' agenda.

Nicholson specifically targeted the Senate for failing to act fast enough on C-15, the Conservatives' bill that includes mandatory minimum prison terms for drug offenses and has been almost universally criticized by criminal justice experts. The bill, which took more than 14 weeks to pass the House of Commons, has been in the Senate for less than two weeks and has already passed First Reading.

Despite the passing of the bill by Liberals in the house, Senate Liberals seem to be standing up to the Conservative bullying.

“They want to appear to be tough on crime,” Senate Opposition Leader James Cowan said. “If they were really serious about this, they would have introduced these bills at the beginning of the session and processed them through the House and gotten them to us before the end of the session.”

Cowan said other bills have taken several months to pass the House, but Nicholson is demanding they pass the Senate in only two or three days.

“We’re not going to be pushed into doing that,” Cowan said, suggesting the Conservatives are trying to distract attention away from the economy and the isotope shortage.

Critics of the bill say evidence overwhelming shows mandatory minimums simply don't work, can be extremely expensive to enforce, and cause more harm than good.

“Rob Nicholson has ignored the preponderance of scientific evidence and international experience, and now he is ignoring the Constitution”, said Kirk Tousaw, Executive Director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation. “C-15 has profound implications for our criminal justice system and provincial budgets, the Senate has a constitutional obligation to study the implications of this bill, especially considering that the Conservatives did not.”

“For Rob Nicholson to attempt to push through a bill he could not produce a single piece of evidence to support is absurd”, (Marc) Emery said, “The Conservative Party may take it's cues from the Republicans, but thankfully, the Senate does not”. ~ Read the whole article here.

***

Of the 16 experts called to testify on C-15, 13 called for the outright dismissal of the bill. When prompted, the Conservatives declined to provide evidence for the bill, and instead accused the opposition of being soft on crime.

***

Update 2/2/2010: Well, well now, what's this we hear about Mr. Nicholson?

"Geneviève Breton, Mr. Nicholson's (Niagara Falls, Ont.) director of communications, said in an email to The Hill Times that the justice system and the drug world are different than they were 22 years ago, and therefore the government's response has also changed."

Hmmm.... but what about this? Just sayin'....

UPDATE #2, May 2010: Bill C-15 has been reintroduced as Bill S-10 by the HarperCONS, please read up on the new incarnation of this disastrous bill.

I also encourage you to read and bookmark this awesome blog, "Tracking the Politics of 'Crime' and Punishment in Canada - Commentary that aims to make sense of recent developments in the politics of 'crime' and punishment in the Canadian context", it really is top notch when it comes to the Tories and their favourite law n' order distractions.

A phenomenal informational post is "Crime' and Punishment Bills Represent 32% of Government Legislation Tabled This Parliamentary Session". It reads in part:

"The current minority Government of Canada has an ideological addiction to incarceration. Despite the known harms - economic, political and social - they turn to punishment in their time of need. The Conservative legislative agenda does not serve Canadians, it serves themselves."

And again, don't forget to stay updated at whyprohibition.ca and cannabisfacts.ca

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Jeff Jedras' National Post article "Liberals need to call Harper's bluff on crime" hits the nail on the head. I love Jeff's blog and have been reading it for quite some time, you should check it out too.

We are fortunate to see what has happened in the United States when a government is "Stupid on Crime" because they don't want to be labeled "Soft on Crime".




The Americans are looking for ways to fix their broken system, so why is Stephen Harper and the Conservatives hellbent on traveling down this same doomed path? And why are the Liberals content to let them do it?

"Stupid is as stupid does"

~ A person's intelligence may be judged
by the wisdom (or lack thereof) of his or her
actions, opinions or decisions.

Along with Jeff, Marc Holland gets it right too:

Tories take wrong road on crime

"The Harper government claims to be "tough on crime," but their discredited U.S.-style policies on crime and punishment are making Canadians less safe.

Their ineffective and costly plan, entitled A Roadmap to Public Safety, should more accurately be entitled A Roadmap to Public Disaster.

Modelled after failed American policies even diehard Republicans now admit are an abject failure, it will result in more prisons and longer sentences, while doing nothing to reduce recidivism. When over 90% of the prison population will be released, the Harper government's failure to seriously invest in vital programming needed for rehabilitation and reintegration, including substance abuse treatment and mental illness care, is nothing short of reckless."

Please also take the time and listen to Angela Davis' speech about the Prison Industrial Complex, and check out a prior post I wrote featuring a speech from Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance at the NAACP Conference.


"The U.S. has more people in jail than any other country. The General Accounting Office says the number of inmates has tripled since 1980. In this program, recorded in Colorado Springs, Angela Davis discusses how race, class and gender issues intersect with the drug war and the fast-growing prison industry."

I'm not a Member of Parliament, just a Mom from the "Suburban Inner City". If I can figure out the madness and failure in our current and upcoming drug laws, why can't our politicians? During debate in the House of Commons regarding Bill C-15, every time the Conservatives were asked to show their research that Mandatory Minimum Sentencing worked, they did not produce one shred of evidence.

"We're absolutely convinced, from our consultation with Canadians, that this is exactly what Canadians want us to do. ... We have the evidence that Canadians have told us that," Mr. Nicholson responded.

Mr. Harper kept stating "Canadians told me this is what they want." Well I am Canadian Mr. Harper, and I said no such thing. You have no right to speak for me and I am offended that you would make that assumption.

In fact, a 2007 Angus Reid poll concluded:

Canadians See Drug Offenses as Illness, Not Crime
February 01, 2007

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in Canada believe prevention and treatment should be the main focus when dealing with drug users, according to a poll by Innovative Research Group released by CanWest News Service. 65 per cent of respondents think the consumption of illegal drugs is an illness.

I would also like to add that just because someone uses cannabis does not mean they are "an addict". We don't call everyone who drinks beer, wine or liquor Alcoholics because they unwind with a few drinks with friends on a Friday night. This study even highlights the popular trend of Canadian Suburbanites using cannabis as a safer alternative to alcohol.

Over 600,000 Canadians now have criminal records because they chose to use Cannabis. For the most part, these are otherwise law abiding, caring, socially productive individuals who have made a personal choice to use a naturally grown non-toxic plant which there has never been one recorded death. The crime is largely related to the Prohibition of the plant as the black market makes it a valuable commodity.

As mentioned above, I believe we need to be smart about crime. My kids are growing up here in our beautiful country and it is my duty to them to ask of my government to implement logical and realistic policies concerning crime. Someone sparking up a joint in their own home doesn't threaten my boys, but pedophiles do. Get your priorities straight, Steve - your ideological "throw 'em all in jail" stance isn't fooling me or the educated middle class.

Update- Great Article from Greg Weston: "CSI: Parliament Hill" Further proof that the Conservatives love to use propagandist scare tactics to gain votes based on fear, not facts.

Update #2 - Of course! The Conservatives will need more criminals to justify:

"the government plans to increase the size, and budget for federal penitentiaries in order to accommodate the influx of prisoners resulting from the new crime bills. The annual budget for prisons has grown from $88.5-million in 2006-07 to $195.1-million this year. And is projected to reach $211.6-million in 2010-11.

Pay up, Canadian Taxpayers!!!

Update #3 - More wisdom, this time from Kate Heartfield in The Ottawa Citizen "Masters of the Message" and great debate regarding Bill C-25 by Hon. Mobina S. B. Jaffer.

UPDATE #4, May 2010 - The Conservative Government has reintroduced Bill C-15 - Bill S-10 ~ New Name For Bad Law regardless of the fact that America has proven that the Billions Spent Had Meager Effect In 40-Year War On Drugs.

UPDATE #5, September 22nd, 2011 - A new session of Parliament is now underway and The Conservatives have introduced C-10, combining 9 previous unpassed bills into one huge "Omnibus" Bill. The scariest red flag here is that it is legislation that lumps different crimes together - College kids growing six cannabis plants have no business belonging in the same Bill as paedophiles, that's just ridiculous! Crime is complex - you can't just act "Tough on Crime!" you need to be smart about crime and weigh each case individually on evidence and severity and use judicial discretion. Of course people want child predators behind bars, but imprisoning non-violent cannabis consumers in with the likes of Paul Bernardo is dangerous, reckless and an an infringement of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This time 'round, it looks like the Liberals are going to be brave and join together along with the NDP, Green & Bloc to stand up against this terrible piece of ideological legislation

Please read: Conservatives' new crime bill borrows from failed U.S. model

and

"Tough on crime is a good political slogan. Smart on crime is better public policy."

Read more: New crime bill fails most tests - http://www.timescolonist.com/news/crime+bill+fails+most+tests/5441197/story.html#ixzz1YjMXIxV4

And what of the victims the Conservatives claim to defend during their flurry of press conferences announcing their new Act?

"In the 2010 budget the government slashed Grants for the Victims of Crime Initiative by 43% and the Contributions to the Victims of Crime Initiative by 34%. This money would have gone directly to community groups that help victims recover from trauma. Furthermore, the government’s Fall 2010 advertising report showed that $6 million was set aside to produce an advertising campaign directed at victims of crime, while funding for the Victims of Crime Initiative last year amounted to just under $4 million. The ad campaign is shockingly hypocritical, since the Conservatives have spent more money on the ads than they have on actual initiatives to help victims of crime." - Former MP Marlene Jennings, Official Opposition Critic for Justice and the Attorney General

Why Did Liberal MPs Support Bill C-15?

From the 2009 Liberal Convention, in Vancouver, British Columbia,

Justice and Constitutional Resolutions:

53. Legalize and Regulate Marijuana

WHEREAS, despite almost a century of prohibition, millions of Canadians today regularly consume marijuana and other cannabis products;

AND WHEREAS the failed prohibition of marijuana has exhausted countless billions of dollars spent on ineffective or incomplete enforcement and has resulted in unnecessarily dangerous and expensive congestion in our judicial system;

AND WHEREAS various marijuana decriminalization or legalization policy prescriptions have been recommended by the 1969-72 Commission of Enquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, the 2002 Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, and the 2002 House of Commons Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs;

AND WHEREAS the legal status quo for the criminal regulation of marijuana continues to endanger Canadians by generating significant resources for gang-related violent criminal activity and weapons smuggling - a reality which could be very easily confronted by the regulation and legitimization of Canada's marijuana industry;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that a new Liberal government will legalize marijuana and
ensure the regulation and taxation of its production, distribution, and use, while enacting strict penalties for illegal trafficking, illegal importation and exportation, and impaired driving.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a new Liberal government will invest significant resources in prevention and education programs designed to promote awareness of the health risks and consequences of marijuana use and dependency, especially amongst youth.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a new Liberal government will extend amnesty to all
Canadians previously convicted of simple and minimal marijuana possession, and ensure the elimination of all criminal records related thereto.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a new Liberal government will work with the provinces and local governments of Canada on a coordinated regulatory approach to marijuana which maintains significant federal responsibility for marijuana control while respecting provincial health jurisdiction and particular regional concerns and practices.
~Liberal Party of Canada (British Columbia) - April 30 - May 3, 2009.

Flip-Flop

Before the vote on Bill C-15: A number of prominent Liberals challenged their party's puzzling support for Bill C-15. Dozens of bloggers, riding association presidents and other party members publicly complained about Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff pressuring the party to back the new law.

Yet, when it came to the April 8th. parliamentary vote, every Liberal present voted for the bill, except for Liberal MP Keith Martin who supports decriminalization. Martin abstained from the vote. The NDP and Bloc all voted against it.

"In the context of some occasions where the sentences have not been appropriate, we're in support of C-15," said Ignatieff. "We support stronger measures."

What?

To recap, at their biannual convention the Liberals promise to legalize Cannabis if elected, but when push comes to shove they hop on the PC Drug War bandwagon and support a bill that will bring harsher penalties regarding Cannabis. They endorsed this policy without any estimate of how much it will cost Canadian taxpayers. And they want us to trust them? They want us to vote for them? Until the Liberals come clean with their true intentions regarding cannabis prohibition what are are we Canadians to believe?


Our Hope - The Senate

The week of June 25th. senators voted to delay their decision regarding Bill C-15 by a 38-33 vote. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson ranted, accusing Liberal senators of blocking the Conservatives agenda. The following is an excerpt from a June 22nd. feature article from Cannabis Culture magazine:

Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson lashed out at the Senate today, accusing them of blocking the Conservatives so called “law and order' agenda.

Nicholson specifically targeted the Senate for failing to act fast enough on C-15, the Conservatives' bill that includes mandatory minimum prison terms for drug offenses and has been almost universally criticized by criminal justice experts. The bill, which took more than 14 weeks to pass the House of Commons, has been in the Senate for less than two weeks and has already passed First Reading.

Despite the passing of the bill by Liberals in the house, Senate Liberals seem to be standing up to the Conservative bullying.

“They want to appear to be tough on crime,” Senate Opposition Leader James Cowan said. “If they were really serious about this, they would have introduced these bills at the beginning of the session and processed them through the House and gotten them to us before the end of the session.”

Cowan said other bills have taken several months to pass the House, but Nicholson is demanding they pass the Senate in only two or three days.

“We’re not going to be pushed into doing that,” Cowan said, suggesting the Conservatives are trying to distract attention away from the economy and the isotope shortage.

Critics of the bill say evidence overwhelming shows mandatory minimums simply don't work, can be extremely expensive to enforce, and cause more harm than good.

“Rob Nicholson has ignored the preponderance of scientific evidence and international experience, and now he is ignoring the Constitution”, said Kirk Tousaw, Executive Director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation. “C-15 has profound implications for our criminal justice system and provincial budgets, the Senate has a constitutional obligation to study the implications of this bill, especially considering that the Conservatives did not.”

“For Rob Nicholson to attempt to push through a bill he could not produce a single piece of evidence to support is absurd”, (Marc) Emery said, “The Conservative Party may take it's cues from the Republicans, but thankfully, the Senate does not”. ~ Read the whole article here.

***

Of the 16 experts called to testify on C-15, 13 called for the outright dismissal of the bill. When prompted, the Conservatives declined to provide evidence for the bill, and instead accused the opposition of being soft on crime.

***

While the final answers about Bill C-15 are cautiously awaited and won't be known until at least September 15th when parliament resumes, we pin our hopes on the belief that Liberal Senators will be the wise voice of reason and reject it. Anything less is an assault on the freedom of every single Canadian.

The War on Drugs has failed - it's time for Canada to step up and develop drug policy in an intelligent, common sense manner. Drugs are a health issue, not a criminal one. If we don't change our draconian prohibition laws the consequences will be tragic.

If the the Liberal Party had fortitude, they would champion cannabis legalization and bring honour back to law enforcement. We had more faith in the justice system when police pledged and respected their motto: "To Protect and Serve", Canadians would rather not live in our current prohibition induced "Us vs. Them" state. Canadians long for Members of Parliament who represent our best interests and stand up for freedom and personal autonomy.

While the Conservatives seem intent on chipping away at our rights, Liberal flip-flopping leaves constituents feeling even more disillusioned and disappointed in our politicians. 'Tis such a sad state of affairs.... no wonder Canadians aren't voting. It's really too bad we don't have a James Gray. Canadians sure could use a politician like him.

For more information on Bill C-15, please visit WhyProhibition.ca