Angry Robot

Am I Legal Or Not?

OK so pot isn’t going to be legal? You folks south of the border may be as confused as we Canucks are about what our country’s doing with pot. At the same time they are introduce legislation that would decriminalize possession of marijuana ($150 fine for having under 15 grams), Chretien et al. are unveiling a $245-million anti-pot propaganda campaign. This is typical of our two-faced poll-junkie politicos but that’s another story. As far as I can tell, the reason for all the nonsense is that our judicial branch was throwing out pot possession cases anyway. It’s happened in
Nova Scotia, PEI and elsewhere, because of a ruling in Ontario that federal laws outlawing possession were no longer valid. As it stands now, if I were to be arrested for pot-having today, not only would the case be thrown out by the judge, I’d have a good shot at winning a wrongful arrest lawsuit. So the feds have little choice in the matter – seeing as it ain’t criminal anymore anyway, why not milk a few steep fines from those docile potheads? As for the propaganda: a) I’m sure it has something to do with this and b) damn I’d love to get some cash from the fund to produce some modern-day scare films. Reef-toking makes you a dry-mouthed fat lazy psychotic sex maniac terrist, doncha know?

3 comments on "Am I Legal Or Not?"

  1. mrG says:

    I don’t know where you get your news, but Chretien has never said he was making weed legal, he said all along “decriminalize”, even in that famous speech last month where he said “but don’t light up just yet”. Decriminalize means you won’t be barred from military service for possession, you won’t be barred from working in a daycare or visiting the United States, or working for a bank or any one of thousands of jobs that won’t take you if you have a criminal record. If this bill passes, it only means the crime is a fine, like running a red-light or burning garbage on your property — it doesn’t mean the government says it’s ok to run a red light, it only means you won’t have your life ruined if you get caught.

    patience. patience. we have Emily Murphy, she of the famous “A woman is a person” to thank for bundling herb in with heroin and you don’t undo such a lobby overnight. It’s also very significant that the only dissenting voices in parliament are those reps from cities directly across the line from major US centers and where the local economy is totally dependent on the US — in those places, it’s a little suspicious that the local politician should be so suddenly completely in tune with the exact message from the US president …

  2. D says:

    No, I know the difference, just playing into the confusion (and I know it’s a figure of speech but you can tell where I get my news by following the links). My point is that the gov’t is simultaneously pushing to decriminalize at the same time they plan a “pot is bad” campaign, just as they were the ones prosecuting possession cases, and that a possible explanation is that they would never have moved to decriminalize had all those possession cases not been thrown out.

  3. I heard on CBC radio that the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations is working with the Toronto Police on changes they support to Ontario tenant law to make it easier for landlords and the police to enter premises without a warrant or warning to check for marijuana.

    I was really shocked by this and decided to check it out on the web and found two supporting items from 2002 Toronto Marijuana item one, and
    Toronto Marijuana item two.

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