Big challenges still to come for cannabis law
By tabling legislation to overturn Canada’s 94-year-old prohibition on pot, the Trudeau government has put forward its first truly bold bit of public policy. And it’s a good one. The ban on marijuana has brought a great deal of misery, while delivering few benefits. Yet legalization is far from a fait accompli. The true test of Justin Trudeau’s commitment to this policy will be how his government handles the hurdles to come.
The proposed Cannabis Act would make Canada the first G7 nation to legalize pot across the country and put in place a framework to regulate and tax its sale. It’s worth pausing to reflect on just how sensible this is.
The annual cost to police and courts of enforcing Canada’s current marijuana laws is roughly $500 million. Add to that the hefty financial burden of incarceration, compounded by a decade of punitive Conservative crime policies and, in particular, the misguided introduction of mandatory minimum sentences for minor marijuana offences
For this high price, what have we bought? The evidence suggests little benefit and a world of pain.
Fewer than half of the tens of thousands of people arrested annually for pot-related crimes are convicted, which suggests a vast waste of police resources. And those who are convicted end up with criminal records that can affect jobs, foreign travel, even citizenship — punishments that, in most cases, far outweigh the crime and which drastically increase the likelihood of future, more serious criminality. The U.S. example has made clear that getting tough on drug offences is a recipe not for public safety, but for the opposite.
Neither are the public-health benefits of the ban very compelling. It’s true that while marijuana is less toxic than booze or cigarettes, it has been shown to have a deleterious effect on the developing brain. Yet the evidence suggests the prohibition does nothing to protect children. A 2012 United Nations study found teenagers are more likely to use marijuana in Canada than in most other countries, including the Netherlands and Spain, where the drug is legal. Nor has recent legalization in Colorado or other American states caused any measurable reefer madness among the young — or anyone else, for that matter.
Rather, Trudeau was right last year when he said, somewhat counter-intuitively, that legalization, if done right, actually has the potential actually to manage access.
Marijuana is a relatively benign, widely used drug. The prohibition against it costs the public hundreds of millions of dollars every year, leads to higher crime rates and ensures that gang-run black markets thrive, while failing to limit children’s access or reduce use among the general population. You’d have to be very high to think that’s good policy.
Trudeau is absolutely right to seek to regulate the drug and ensure that it’s safe, to tax it and put proceeds into public education about the risks and to kill, or at least maim, the black market in the process.
His government should be congratulated for the Cannabis Act, not least because it gets many of the tricky details right.
The legislation largely follows the sensible guidelines set out last year by a federal task force, including setting the national minimum legal age at 18. This is significantly lower than the Canadian Medical Association’s recommendation of 21 — and for good reason. The reality is that 18 to 20 is the prime age for experimenting with marijuana. Banning these people from getting the drug legally would all but guarantee the continuation of a thriving black market and would do little to keep pot out of their hands.
This bill doesn’t ignore the health issues around marijuana use. In fact, this, rather than punishing users, is rightly the government’s focus. The Cannabis Act would prohibit advertising aimed at young people, and require that the drug be sold in childproof plain packaging. Perhaps most important, the government tabled a separate bill that would introduce new drugged driving offences, which would carry stiff penalties.
The legislation promises a great deal, but whether its full benefits are realized will inevitably depend in large part on implementation. Some aspects of this are purely federal, such as the licensing of producers. But the bill deliberately leaves to provinces key decisions, such as distribution, price and whether to accept or raise the minimum age for access.
An important test for Trudeau now will be how effectively he can work with provincial governments, especially those like Manitoba that are opposed to legalization, to ensure the benefits are not undermined by timidity or obstruction.
The government has said it hopes to see legalization become official by July 1, 2018. It will be under considerable political pressure to meet this deadline, or at the very least see its pot plan come to fruition by the next election. In the wake of the government’s abandoned promise on electoral reform, its troubling delays on new transparency measures and tax-code changes and its mixed record on indigenous reconciliation, some of the young and progressive voters that propelled the Liberals to power have grown wary.
There will be many opponents of legalization, including in Parliament and among premiers, that will test the government’s resolve. Much depends, both for Canadians and for Trudeau, on how it navigates the inevitable challenges ahead.
The true test of Justin Trudeau’s commitment to his sound pot policy will be how his government handles the hurdles to come