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Editorial: Clear confusion around pot laws

As marijuana activists gathered in Centennial Square Wednesday to celebrate their favourite plant, most were breaking the law. That same day, Canada’s health minister announced the government’s timeline for legalizing marijuana.

As marijuana activists gathered in Centennial Square Wednesday to celebrate their favourite plant, most were breaking the law. That same day, Canada’s health minister announced the government’s timeline for legalizing marijuana.

The law is finally catching up to reality, but the federal government needs to take interim steps to bring order to a confusing patchwork of enforcement across the country.

During a speech at a UN special session on drugs Wednesday, Health Minister Jane Philpott said the government would begin the process next spring to draft legislation regarding the legalization and regulation of marijuana.

Marijuana has been a fact of Canadian life for more than 50 years. During that time, thousands of Canadians have been made criminals for using or selling the drug, while millions who use or sell two common addictive drugs — tobacco and alcohol — have done so under the protection of the law.

Regardless of where one stands on the use of any of these substances, it’s hard to deny that unfairness and inequity are at play. Canadians’ attitudes toward marijuana have evolved; it’s time the law evolved accordingly.

A year might seem a long time to bring in marijuana legislation, but it’s not simply a matter of throwing the doors wide open. As Philpott states, the approach should be rooted in science.

“I am proud to stand up for our drug policy that is informed by solid scientific evidence and uses a lens of public health to maximize education and minimize harm,” she said.

Health Canada will be working with Justice and Public Safety to work out a regime for marijuana control and regulation. A task force, led by Liberal MP and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, will solicit the views of governments, experts and the public.

The government appears to be taking a sensible, logical approach. What isn’t sensible and logical, though, is where the announcement leaves the current array of marijuana laws. Until the new legislation comes in, it is still illegal to possess or sell marijuana, except for medical purposes.

Enforcement of those laws has been widely disparate across the country. When someone tokes up in one jurisdiction, police look the other way. In another, offenders are arrested and charged. A national approach is needed.

Philpott’s announcement will only exacerbate the confusion, unless the government takes steps to instil some order. Guidelines should be laid down for police and justice officials as to how the laws should be enforced pending the new legislation. It will be difficult to prosecute laws the government plans to repeal.

Decriminalizing the use of marijuana is overdue, but let’s not allow the impending changes to blind us to the fact that marijuana is not the benign herb it is often portrayed to be. It is a potent plant that can cause harm. The Mayo Clinic, for example, lists dozens of adverse side-effects that can result from the use of marijuana.

When Europeans first became aware of tobacco, they saw it as a panacea, to the extent it was called the “holy herb” and “God’s remedy,” claims that echo the praise heaped on marijuana today. It took several hundred years — and millions of lives cut short — to discover the harm tobacco does.

But marijuana also has the potential for good, and has already been found to relieve the symptoms of people suffering from a variety of illnesses. But it should be science, not folklore and anecdotal evidence, that calculates what the drug can do.

As the federal government crafts its new marijuana law, it should ensure that the effects of marijuana use, bad and good, are thoroughly and scientifically researched.

This is as much a public-health issue as it is a legal one.