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...and licks to the US government's ass.

"Decrim" won't apply in all provinces, say law experts
by Reverend Damuzi (06 Jul, 2003) Arrests, trials, records will continue everywhere


John Conroy: refuses to support so-called `decriminalization`
Many of Canada's provinces aren't eligible for so-called 'decriminalization' under the proposed Bill C-38 because of the way the proposed law is written.

The problem is that Canada's feds can only implement non-criminal offenses using a piece of law passed in 1992 called the Contraventions Act. Many of the provinces have never agreed to the Contraventions Act, including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland. Renowned cannabis activist and lawyer, John Conroy, helped Cannabis Culture unravel the Machiavellian fine points.

"The provinces that disagreed," said Conroy, "did so because non-criminal offenses are supposed to be their jurisdiction, not the federal government's."

Rather than risk patchwork enforcement under the Contraventions Act, the feds wrote Bill C-38 -- which can't properly be called decriminalization -- as a change to the current drug law, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). Under Bill C-38, Canada's cabinet can enact decriminalization in provinces that have signed into the Contraventions Act if the cabinet wishes. However, until Canada's cabinet does create regulations, there will be no decriminalization in any province, even if Bill C-38 passes.

A Health Canada press release dated in May revealed that the Canadian government is fully aware of the problems with the proposed law. The press release states that in provinces where the Contraventions Act isn't law, "the court system will continue to be used."


Alan Young in a media scrum.
Arrests and court prosecutions continue

Even if the Canadian government passes Bill C-38, all the provinces sign into the Contraventions Act, and the cabinet passes decrim regulations in every province, Canadians everywhere could still be arrested for possessing under 15 grams, taken down to the station and face a day in court so said top Canadian cannabis-law professor Alan Young in a letter to the Marijuana Policy Project that explained why he wouldn't back Canada's proposed "decrim."

"In other words, in enforcing the law relating to possession under 15 grams [via the Contraventions Act] the investigating officer has the discretion whether to informally ticket or whether to formally arrest," wrote Young. "Upon a formal arrest, the offender is subject to search [which can include a strip search] and detention pending release. The trappings of the criminal process are alive and well. If the police employ a formal arrest power then the prosecution [in court] is commenced by the laying of an information, not the issuance of a ticket."

Furthermore, Young elucidated, Bill C-38 is unclear about how courts will handle possession of between 15 and 30 grams of cannabis. It seems that the bill allows prosecutors to choose between going for a Contraventions Act violation or a summary conviction -- summary conviction being how most marijuana offenses are handled today. It lets the prosecutor decide whether an offence between 15 and 30 grams should be eligible for "decrim" or not.

Criminal records continue

Millions of Canadians are under the illusion that decriminalization will mean an end to criminal records, but in fact it means no such thing. To understand why, Young wrote, we have to understand the complex doublespeak of the Contraventions Act.

For example, the Contraventions Act promises that anyone convicted under it "has not been convicted of a criminal offense" and that "a contravention does not constitute an offense for the purposes of the Criminal Records Act."

"However," explained Young, "Nothing in the Contraventions Act, nor the Criminal Records Act, will prevent the creation of criminal records for marijuana possession. [Because,] ironically, the Criminal Records Act is a short piece of legislation which only speaks to the removal of records for those who have received discharges or pardons [so] this protection is completely absent with respect to the proposal to decriminalize marijuana possession.


Cops will continues to treat cannabis Canadians like misbehaving children.
"The Criminal Records Act never defined a 'record' nor does it govern the operation of the RCMP's automated criminal convictions records retrieval system (known as CPIC.)"

Which means that you could get a criminal record under "decrim" -- one that you can never apply to have sealed, kept out of police information systems, or protected from American authorities, a privilege that is now reserved for other kinds of offences.

Has the government ever fooled Canadians about criminal records in the past? In fact, they have. The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act -- our current drug law -- passed in the 90's was supposed to make most smalltime marijuana offenses untraceable, because there would be no fingerprinting. Young told CC that these small time offenses often make it into CPIC anyway, and then are passed on by the RCMP to American Customs and Immigration officials.

Powerful cannabis-defense lawyer Brian McAllister, the man responsible for having possession laws in Ontario struck down as unconstitutional earlier this year, thinks that the distinction between "criminal" and "non-criminal" is essentially meaningless.

"I think Bill C-38 is a real red herring in that the Americans aren't going to make any distinctions if pot in Canada is criminal or ticketable -- if you are found guilty, you will be kept out whether it is a criminal record or not," said McAllister. "I tried to get in last week and was interrogated for about 10 minutes... the official went on and on, 'It doesn't matter if Canada thinks that it is a criminal offense, that it's just a ticket. We still treat it as a bar to admission.'"

Even if marijuana possession convictions under 15 grams aren't kept in CPIC, McAllister, Young, and Conroy all agree that smalltime marijuana convictions - whether they be criminal or not - will likely be recorded by police and kept in a database that is accessible to US authorities.

With so much sneakery surrounding the so-called "decrim" Bill C-38, what stands most revealed is how the Canadian government plans to satisfy US anti-druggies and the Canadian public at the same time, employing the latest fad in western democratic draconianism: writing persecution into the fine print and "slipping it through."

So it's probably best to carry a lot of dope at all times, that way you'll know where you stand.

This new law will be struck down too. The politicians may want to play games, but the judges see the results of badly written laws every day.

I really dont give a shit cause I dont use drugs.. illegal ones anyways

Even if they DID decriminalize it we could still end up with problems like they have in California.

Where you can (by California law) have medicinal pot, but be busted (under federal law) and go to jail.

Yeah, it needs to be out-right legalised. I think that will happen as the courts strike down law after law and insist on justification for any law at all. I kind of wish I still smoked dope now...I stopped long before it was a political act, at least for the third or fifth time around.

I for one have mixed feelings about it.

I think that it will not burden the system as bad. For example. somone with cancer needs a joint or two. instead of going to the doc to get a perscription she goes and gets some from a friend. no doc visit no medicare charges or burden. Plus if everyone can grow it it may put a few drug dealers out of the pot buisness.

Plus the stuff isnt that harmful anyway. I would imagine it will like alcohol. smoke it but dont smoke and drive!!! lol.

Of course if we do decrimialize it there will be consequences from the south!! Funny thought. I wouldnt think it would affect them at all. You know their customs officers are just waiting for that to pass so they can pull somones car apart cause they smell pot. uppidy pricks. lol

If you're gonna keep pot illegal, then why are smoking (tobbaco) and alchohol still legal? Both have been proven to be more harmful and more addicting.

[quote="Canuck_105"]If you're gonna keep pot illegal, then why are smoking (tobbaco) and alchohol still legal? Both have been proven to be more harmful and more addicting

That says it all. Why is pot illegal, and not tobbaco and alchohol? - because the government says so.Also alchohol,tobacco,and firearms are lumped together down here in the states with their own integrated agency.So have a cigarette,a couple of drinks an' go shoot somethin' - YEE HAH !

Just one question I have often wondered why firearms were integrated into alcohol and tobacco? Could you explain that to me please cause to me it just does not make any sense.[/quote]

It's kinda long winded blubs, but is does answer your question.

Take Care

History of ATF from Oxford University Press, Inc.
1789 – 1998 U.S.The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is a tax-collecting, enforcement and regulatory arm of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In common with all other members of the executive branch, ATF's responsibility is established by congressional action. ATF cannot enact a law, nor can it amend the law. Charged as it is with fiscal oversight of some of the most controversial topics in Western civilization, ATF strives to maintain professional neutrality while giving a 35-to-1 return on every dollar it spends. ATF has the best cost-to-collection ratio in the federal family.

ATF is the youngest tax-collecting Treasury agency, separated from the Internal Revenue Service by Treasury Department Order No. 120-1 (former No. 221), effective 1 July 1972. Notwithstanding, ATF traces its roots across two hundred years of American history.

In 1789 under the new Constitution, the first Congress imposed a tax on imported spirits to offset a portion of the Revolutionary War debt assumed from the states. Administration of duties fell to the Department of the Treasury, whose Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, had suggested them. Congressional lawmakers were favorably impressed by the results. The imports tax was augmented by one on domestic production in 1791. Taxpayers had grumbled over import duties. Some of them greeted the domestic levy --- as they do today --- with political resistance, escalating in that early case to the short-lived Whisky Rebellion of 1794. Both revenue sources survived rebellion --- as they do today. Although these particular taxes were eventually abolished, similar devices for revenue came and went as needed until 1862. By Act of 1 July 1862, Congress created an Office of Internal Revenue within the Treasury Department, charging the commissioner with collection, among others, of taxes on distilled spirits and tobacco products that continue, with amendments, today. Because taxation so often does evoke resistance, including criminal evasion, during 1863 Congress authorized the hiring by Internal Revenue of "three detectives to aid in the prevention, detection and punishment of tax evaders." Tax collecting and enforcement were now under one roof. Before decade's end, the Office of Internal Revenue had its own counsel, another component descending in unbroken line to ATF today.

In 1875 federal investigators broke up the "Whisky Ring", an association of grain dealers, politicians and revenue agents that had defrauded the government of millions of dollars in distilled spirits taxes. Responding to the scandal, Congress undertook the first Civil Service reform acts, acknowledging formally that effectiveness of law depends on the quality of its administrators.

The commissioner's annual report for 1877 refers to his office as the Bureau of Internal Revenue, a title that it retained for the next seventy-five years. In 1886, a single employee from the Department of Agriculture came to the Bureau of Internal Revenue under authority of the Oleomargarine Act to establish a Revenue Laboratory. The first samples received in the laboratory that 29 December were of butter suspected of adulteration with oleomargarine. In its second century, ATF's laboratory staff includes --- but is not limited to --- chemists, document analysts, latent print specialists, and firearms and toolmark examiners, supported by its own highly sophisticated facilities at Rockville, Maryland, Atlanta, Georgia, and Walnut Creek, California. That first chemist would recognize some aspects of laboratory service today (analysis of alcohol and tobacco products, for instance) although tools such as chromatography and electrophoresis might seem magic. There was nothing in 1886 to foreshadow the Laboratory's sought-after forensic skills in arson, explosives, and criminal-evidence examination, a resource now available to law enforcement personnel worldwide.

Ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1919, in combination with the Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Act of that year, brought to prominence those officers --- 'revenoors' --- charged with investigating criminal violations of the Internal Revenue law, including illicit manufacture of liquors, who coalesced by 1920 into the Prohibition Unit. Evolution of this unit reflects the difficulty of enforcing a nation-wide ban on "manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes." Internal Revenue's orientation has been toward collection throughout its history. Enforcement efforts, albeit necessary, never came easily. On April Fool's Day, 1927, Treasury elevated the Prohibition Unit to bureau status within the department. Congress was impatient with the results. On 1 July 1930 Congress created certain confusion for later historians by transferring "the penal provisions of the national prohibition act" from Treasury's Bureau of Prohibition (which then ceased to exist) to the Department of Justice's new Bureau of Prohibition --- with an important exception: tax-related and regulatory activities, "the permissive provisions," remained at Treasury, under a new Bureau of Industrial Alcohol. The most illustrious enforcer during that tumultuous era was Eliot Ness, the "T-man" who toppled Chicago's organized-crime king Al Capone on tax-evasion charges.

The Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, repealing Prohibition, achieved ratification with unanticipated speed by 5 December 1933, catching Congress in recess. As an interim measure to manage a burgeoning legitimate alcohol industry, by executive order under the National Industrial Recovery Act, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Federal Alcohol Control Administration (FACA). The FACA, in cooperation with the Departments of Agriculture and Treasury, endeavored to guide wineries and distilleries under a system based on brewers' voluntary codes of fair competition. The FACA was relieved of its burden --- and effectively vanished from history --- after just twenty months, when President Roosevelt in August 1935 signed the Federal Alcohol Administration (FAA) Act. The new FAA received a firm departmental assignment: Treasury once more found itself regulating the alcohol industry.

Although Prohibition was officially over, the era's side effects continued for decades to mold the shape of ATF. On 10 March 1934 Justice's Prohibition enforcement duties folded into the infant Alcohol Tax Unit (ATU), Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of the Treasury. At the same time, the FAA, functioning independently within Treasury, was carrying forward its mandate to collect data, to establish license and permit requirements, and define the regulations that ensure an open, fair marketplace for the alcohol industry and the consumer. In 1940 the FAA as an Administration merged with the ATU. The FAA Act continues today as one foundation of ATF's enabling legislation.

National dismay over the weaponry wielded so conspicuously by organized crime during Prohibition led to passage in 1934 of the National Firearms Act, followed in four years by the Federal Firearms Act. The newly regulated articles might be firearms, but taxes were involved as ever. The Miscellaneous Tax Unit, Bureau of Internal Revenue, collected the fees. In 1942 enforcement duties for the "Firearms Program" fell to the ATU, which was accustomed to managing controversial industries. In a major Internal Revenue reorganization of 1952, the nearly-century-old Miscellaneous Tax Unit was dismantled. Its firearms and tobacco tax responsibilities went to the ATU. The Bureau of Internal Revenue became the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) we know today. Acknowledging a portion of ATU's new burden, IRS renamed it the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division. This incarnation lasted until 1968 passage of the Gun Control Act, which gave to the laboratory, among other things, responsibility for explosives. The division title shifted to Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Division. Title XI of the Organized Crime Control Act in 1970 (Title XI) formalized ATF Division explosives expertise. In the same year, moved by a growing perception that the IRS's revenue-collecting bias did not reflect ATF Division's enforcement skills, overtures began toward ATF independence.

Treasury Department Order No. 120-1 (originally No. 221), effective 1 July 1972, transferred to ATF from IRS those functions, powers and duties related to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. (During the mid-1970s at Treasury's direction ATF briefly assumed responsibility for wagering laws; that task returned to the IRS in less than 3 years.) Throughout the 1970s, based on determination that accelerants used in arson, when explosions might occur, meet Title XI's definition of explosives, ATF began demonstrating in court its ability to prove arson. In the Anti-Arson Act of 1982, Congress amended Title XI to make it clear that arson is a federal crime, giving ATF responsibility for investigating commercial arson nationwide.

ATF continues a mutually beneficial interface with its legitimate industries, while refining unique enforcement skills. With developments such as the state-of-the-art Integrated Ballistic Identification System (a computerized matching program for weapons and the ammunition fired from them), accelerant- and explosives/weapons-detection canines, and the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program (which gives children the tools to resist membership in violent gangs), ATF leads and supports law enforcement internationally.

In its first quarter-century ATF has had only 4 Directors: Rex Davis, G.R. Dickerson, Stephen Higgins, and John Magaw. The director is appointed by the secretary of the Treasury, and reports to the under secretary (enforcement). ATF headquarters are in Washington, D.C., although most personnel and many ATF operations are decentralized throughout the country, with a few stations overseas. ATF agents, inspectors, and support staff are involved in investigating some of the most violent crimes in society, in regulating some of the most important and sensitive industries in America, and in collecting over $13 billion in annual revenue. ATF is a young federal agency, yet it is heir to the whole experience and proud tradition of "these United States."

Thanks Beckie that explained it. To me it seems that there is just too many government agencies in the State. You got a agency for this that and god knows whatelse. I think wether you are from Canada or the States you take away half of these agencies the respective governments would probably save a whole whack of bucks and the governments would not have the headaches they have now. I am not one for politics. Cause I don'T know from nothing when it comes to that. But I bet ya ya get of some agencies we would be better off. Jeez I hope that made sense.
Anyways, thanks Beckie

I do agree with you blubs that there are alot of unnecessary agencies, but alot are necessary evils. As for the amount of buck spent annually, I think both governments (us and canada) think the bucket is bottomless.

Take care Blubs

Boy have you ever got that right. Both governments seem to think they have a bottomless bucket. And they do at the expense of us taxpayers. I wonder whatpoliticians would do if they had had to live like us common folk? I doubt they would make it in the real world.
Personally I think the best politician would be someone like the common man. But then again we do and I am talking good old pie in the face Ralph. I voted for him when I was still living back home I do beleive I blew it. I think the only two politicians Alberta had that were any good was Ernest Manning and Peter Lougheed.

Yup, it all kinda went down hill in the past while. I agree with you in regards to Manning and Lougheed. I still think Klein is on the right track and can still do some good, at least he does what he says. But like any politician, you kinda hold your breath, because you just never know, really.

That pie in the face musta hurt, ouch

I haven't been living in "'Gods Country" for a while now so I really do not know what Ralph is up to. I think he is putting too much emphasis on the oil patch tho and not helping the farmers much. Anyways that is my take on it. As I said I know from nothing about politics. It just gets me a bit p.od when politicians seem to be in it for their own personal gain.

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