Mandatory Minimum Sentencing (MAP)

DrugSense

Mission City Record, 03 May 2012 - Eight B.C. mayors have joined a coordinated campaign to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana to combat gang violence and other drug-related crime, but Mission's top municipal politician disagrees with his colleagues. Three of the mayors are from the Lower Mainland - Vancouver's Gregor Robertson, Burnaby's Derek Corrigan and North Vancouver City's Darrell Mussatto - while the other cities represented are Vernon, Armstrong, Enderby, Lake Country and the District of Metchosin.

Auburn Reporter, 04 May 2012 - Washington's Supreme Court late last month overturned a man's conviction on marijuana charges, ruling that the City didn't have the authority to prosecute him under state law in municipal court. According to court records, Auburn police officers spotted Dustin Gauntt in late 2008 driving within the city limits, smoking what appeared to be marijuana in a pipe. Officers stopped his vehicle, confirmed their suspicions about the pot and issued him a citation for possession of marijuana and use of drug paraphernalia.

Abbotsford News, 03 May 2012 - Abbotsford's Banman not among them Eight B.C. mayors have joined a coordinated campaign to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana to combat gang violence and other drug-related crime. However, Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman is not among them.

The Telegram, 28 Apr 2012 - Why Advocates Say Marijuana Should Be Legalized In his Torbay home, Mike Dawe slides open an end-table drawer, pulls out a Mason jar and rolls a joint. There are no additives like tobacco. The marijuana - weed or pot as it is most commonly called - is grown by Dawe with an ardent dedication to craftsmanship.

North Shore News, 27 Apr 2012 - Unanimous Motion Follows Stop the Violence B.C. Presentation MARIJUANA prohibition has "failed miserably," says the City of North Vancouver's council, who voted unanimously Monday to call for decriminalization and regulation of the drug.

Globe and Mail, 26 Apr 2012 - The global war on drugs is based on false assumptions and antiquated laws that do not reflect contemporary research about drug use, production and markets. It is time to cast aside dogma, and transform global drug strategy with policies based on evidence, not ideology. At the recent Summit of the Americas, Latin America's leaders pressed Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama to study alternatives to the failed war on drugs; even Mr. Harper, architect of mandatory minimums for minor drug offences at home, acknowledged the current approach isn't working. The 31 hemispheric leaders agreed to appoint a panel to study reform of global drug policies.

Toronto Star, 21 Apr 2012 - OTTAWA - Thomas Mulcair is clearing the air on pot, clarifying that he doesn't believe anyone should go to jail for possessing a couple of joints. The freshly minted NDP leader created confusion about his party's position recently when he said decriminalization of marijuana would be a mistake.

Globe and Mail, 19 Apr 2012 - Former U.S. prosecutor links the trade in B.C. - grown marijuana to drug violence in Mexico and the United States Linking the trade in B.C.-grown marijuana to drug violence in Mexico and the United States, a former U.S. federal prosecutor has added his voice to a growing chorus in favour of legalizing pot.

Globe and Mail, 20 Apr 2012 - Tom Mulcair is clearing the air on pot, clarifying that he doesn't believe anyone should go to jail for possessing a couple of joints. The freshly minted NDP leader created confusion about his party's position recently when he said decriminalization of marijuana would be a mistake.

Globe and Mail, 20 Apr 2012 - The Kingston Penitentiary opened in 1835, three years before the coronation of Queen Victoria, and 24 years before Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. Its closing, announced by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews on Thursday, is an unmitigated good. Canada can be "tough on crime," or whatever the latest buzz phrase is, without being medieval. But neither the planned closing, nor Mr. Toews's statement on the occasion, is reason to believe Canada's prison population is growing at anything but a fast pace - fast in itself, and especially fast considering the dropping crime rates.

New York Times, 18 Apr 2012 - The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 addressed a gross inequity in federal sentences by reducing the disparity in punishment for a crime involving crack versus powdered cocaine. Previously, under a 1986 law, 50 grams of crack (the weight of a candy bar) led to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years - the same sentence that applied to 5,000 grams of powdered cocaine (enough to fill a brief case). A street dealer of crack cocaine often got a longer sentence than the major trafficker who sold the powdered cocaine made into crack. The new law cut the 100 to 1 ratio to 18 to 1 - not equalizing the penalties as it should have but markedly reducing the difference. In two cases the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday, the issue is whether the sentencing law should apply to people who were convicted of cocaine crimes, but not yet sentenced, before it went into effect. The Justice Department initially argued that the new rule should apply only to crimes committed after the law was signed. To its credit, it changed its stance in July 2011, saying that since the goal of the law was to "rectify a discredited policy," the rule should apply to all defendants sentenced after the law's passage. This is clearly the right way to read the law, given the legislative history and the text, including the "emergency authority" for the United States Sentencing Commission to quickly put out guidelines. A rule of leniency requires that any ambiguity in a criminal statute be resolved in favor of defendants - especially when the old sentencing rules resulted in huge racial disparities, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out.

Globe and Mail, 17 Apr 2012 - This weekend's Summit of the Americas did not produce a joint communique charting the future of the hemisphere, but the 31 leaders agreed on one thing: The U.S.-led war on drugs has been a dismal failure. The summit pledged to create a panel of experts through the Organization of American States to consider drug policy reforms, and new approaches to stem the violence and power of the drug cartels.

Globe and Mail, 14 Apr 2012 - Latin American leaders are pushing to make a Cartagena summit a moment that sparks the world to redefine its approach to drugs. Stephen Harper, like U.S. President Barack Obama, has vowed to stand in the way. Make no mistake, as presidents from Colombia to Mexico flirt with the idea of legalizing or decriminalizing drugs, the notion is a challenge aimed at the nations to the north, the United States and Canada, the big consumer markets for the smuggled drugs. At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, Mr. Harper will tell them they've got it all wrong.

Toronto Star, 31 Mar 2012 - Prominent public health experts are warning the federal government that its way of battling illicit drugs is fundamentally wrong. They recommend abandoning an irrational criminal justice approach based mainly on ideology and emotion. Rather than pointlessly locking up more drug abusers, they want Ottawa to turn to "harm reduction" policies scientifically grounded in what works. Imagine that - setting policy based on results and evidence! This makes eminent sense. But the sad fact is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is unlikely to listen. After all, what do scientific outcomes matter if they contradict the hard right's visceral desire to "get tough" on crime?

Maple Ridge News, 30 Mar 2012 - A call by B.C.'s Chief Medical Health Officer for marijuana to be decriminalized in Canada is welcomed by patients at the Taggs Medical Cannabis Dispensary in Maple Ridge, who see his support as crucial on the path to eventually legalization. In a paper published in Open Medicine, an international, peer-reviewed medical journal, Dr. Perry Kendall and his Nova Scotia counterpart Dr. Robert Strang endorsed taxing and regulating cannabis as an effective way to improve health and safety in Canada.

Globe and Mail, 28 Mar 2012 - The senior medical officers of two provinces are urging the federal government to scrap controversial mandatory minimum sentences and use scientific evidence to create drug policies that work. Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall of British Columbia and Chief Public Health Officer Robert Strang of Nova Scotia were the co-authors of an analysis published on Wednesday in the journal Open Medicine questioning Canada's aggressive regulation of illicit drugs, an expensive pursuit that they say has been a dismal failure.

The Outlook, 22 Mar 2012 - With public safety minister Vic Toews visiting Metro Vancouver this week, West Vancouver police chief Peter Lepine is in Ottawa raising alarm about new federal crime and policing measures he says could leave the public less safe. As president of the B.C. Association of Police Chiefs, Lepine voiced his concerns to The Outlook about two particular pieces of legislation - - one already passed and one forthcoming. Namely, the Conservative government's tough-on-crime legislation, Bill C-10, which passed in the House of Commons last Monday, and the government's 2012 budget to be introduced in the House on March 29.