Q. What is marijuana?
A. "Marijuana" refers to the dried flowers of the female cannabis plant. When smoked or eaten these flowers become psychoactive, producing a euphoric high. In Canada, like most other Western countries, marijuana is illegal to grow, sell, and possess.
Q. Who uses cannabis?
A. People from all types of backgrounds have used, and continue to use, cannabis, from authors, to lawyers, to athletes, to musicians, to just about anyone type of person you can imagine. Jack Nicholson (actor), Pierre Elliot Trudeau (Prime Minister), Louie Armstrong (jazz musician), John Lennon (musician), Conan O'Brien (TV show host), Bill Maher (TV show host), Shakespeare (playwright), Oscar Wilde (playwright), Milton Berle (actor), Pablo Picasso (painter), Carl Sagan (scientist), and Ted Turner (businessman), all smoked pot at one time, or continue to do so, and they turned out just fine.
Q. How does marijuana affect your health?
A. Marijuana is relatively benign. Like it's predecessors the La Guardia Committee (New York City) (1), the LeDain Report (Canada) (2), and countless other government sanctioned studies, the May 2002 Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs found that "[c]annabis may have some negative effects on the health of individuals, but considering the patterns of use, these effects are relatively benign" (3).
Q. Is marijuana a "gateway" drug?
A. No more than alcohol or tobacco are gateway drugs. In their 1999 paper, titled The Science of Cannabis, the National Institute of Medicine found that there is no conclusive evidence to establish the gateway hypothesis (4).
Q. Does marijuana consumption promote criminal behaviour in users?
A. No. Marijuana users generally don't commit any crimes except buying and consuming their drug of choice. The Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs (a.k.a. the LeDain Commission (2) found that "There is no scientific evidence that cannabis use, itself, is significantly responsible for the commission of other forms of criminal behaviour."
Q. Is marijuana addictive?
A. No. There is no great scientific evidence to prove the physical addiction of marijuana. As early as 1925, there was conclusive evidence that marijuana did not lead to dependence. At that time, after studying the use of cannabis by U.S. soldiers, the Panama Canal Zone Governor's Committee concluded "[t]here is no evidence marihuana, as grown here, is a 'habit-forming' drug in the sense in which the term applies to alcohol, opium, cocaine, etc" (5).
Q. Why is marijuana illegal?
A. Canadian suffragette and feminist Emily Murphy led a successful campaign to warn the public of the dangers of marijuana, in an effort to protect the white race from the "yellow menace," that were Asian Canadians. Murphy, a member of the highly racist Irish Orange Order, thought that use of "dope" was a ploy by Asian Canadians to gain control of society by getting good innocent 'whites,' hooked on "dope" (6) - and we build statues in her honour! In the book, marijuana users were said to go completely insane after smoking the drug, "liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods of cruelty." In reply to Murphy's popular efforts, Parliament outlawed marijuana, without any debate, in 1923.
Q. How many Canadians are arrested each year for marijuana?
A. In 1999, Statistics Canada reported that 34,347 people were charged with cannabis-related offences, which represents 70% of the total drug charges. The cannabis charges broke down into 8,112 for trafficking, 4,697 for cultivation, 157 for importation, and 21,381 for simple possession (7). In 2000 in B.C., where police officials claim there is "de facto decriminalization," 65% of all cannabis chares are for simple possession, or 10,910 actual charges laid (8). And if one is to cross-reference these studies, simple possession charges in B.C. represent roughly 32% of all cannabis-related offences in Canada. This is alarming when one considers that B.C. only has 12% of Canada's total population. Doing the math, it means taking the 10,910 simple possession charges in B.C. in 2000, and dividing them by 34,347 cannabis-related offences for Canada in 1999. Again, 32% of all cannabis charges in Canada are for simple possession in B.C., some haven for tolerance B.C. is!
Q. Is there a link between marijuana and terrorism?
A. In their May 2002 report, Drug Situation in Canada, the RCMP suggest that drugs finance terrorism (9). This primarily refers to imported drugs like heroin and cocaine. But the claim still warrants a response. And it is, perhaps, best addressed by the following quote from the Canadian Foundation on Drug Policy, "[r]emember that it is drug prohibition that generates huge profits for these [terrorist] groups. Without prohibition, the drug trade could not finance terrorism to any significant degree, since profits from the legal sale of drugs would be a small fraction of what they are now. Politicians and policymakers [and police] typically don't appear to understand - or they deliberately choose to ignore - this central point. They often simply make the claim that the drug trade, or drug use, supports terrorism. They completely ignore the role of drug prohibition in making the selling of drugs so profitable to terrorists in the first place" (10).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1) Mayor's Committee on Marijuana, The Marijuana Problem in the City of New York (Lancaster, Pa., 1944).
(2) Canadian Government Committee into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. Cannabis. Crown: Ottawa, 1972.
(3) Nolin, The Honourable Pierre Claude, and The Honourable Colin Kenny. "Discussion Paper on Cannabis." The Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, May 2002.
(4) National Institute of Medicine. The Science of Cannabis. Washington, DC, 1999.
(5) Panama Canal Zone Governor's Committee, April-December 1925; J.F. Siler et. al., "Marijuana Smoking in Panama," Milit. Surg., 73 (1933).
(6) Murphy, Emily. The Black Candle. Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1973.
(7) 2001 Report of the Auditor General of Canada. Chapter 11. "Illicit Drugs: The Federal Government's Role." December 4, 2001.
(8) Police and Crime Statistics Summary 1991-2000. Chapter 5. "Drug Crime in British Columbia." 73-78.
(9) Drug Analysis Section Criminal Analysis Branch Criminal Intelligence Directorate Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Drug Situation in Canada 2001. Ottawa: April, 2002.
(10) Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. "How Drug Prohibition Finances and Otherwise Enables Terrorism," Submission to the Senate of Canada Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, October 29, 2001.
PRODUCED BY THE MARIJUANA PARTY (WWW.BCMARIJUANAPARTY.CA).
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