Marijuana Possession Laws in Canada

[eyeball]

As a headline on a story in Thursday's Post noted, as "$40 Pot Charge Has Law In Turmoil." So where do Canadians now stand in terms of the being charged with possessing marijuana? This reader claims pot users no longer have anything to fear.

--- Paul Russell, NP letters editor

Following the Terry Parker decision that saw marijuana possession laws struck down because there was no provision for medical exemption, the then Liberal government was given one year in which to draft a new law. However, parliament was never involved and what followed were the Medical Marijuana Regulations. But regulations cannot replace a law.

So here’s what the government doesn’t want anyone to know: There is currently no constitutionally valid law prohibiting the possession of marijuana in Canada.

Letter of the Day

Perhaps the government was hoping people wouldn't notice amongst all the law and order hoopla about cracking down and getting tough and mandatory sentences. Perhaps the lawyers on the forum can answer something, is it still business as usual and are courts still busily processing and convicting people for growing, possessing and selling pot? Is what the letter writer above says really the case?

If yes, does the absence of an enforcable law mean liberty or anarchy, and for whom? I wonder what if anything will rush into this vacume? It sounds like what the court has said is that the government must pass new legislation that outlaws marijuana in some very specific ways. Perhaps there is no easy way to do that anymore. Perhaps the government is pretending everything is still business as usual to keep our excitable neighbours to the south from panicking. In the meantime will people still be caught between a rock and a hard place, the police and the underworld? Law and anarchy doesn't sound very appealing.

Is marijuana legal or is its prohibition illegal and what's the difference? Does the state have to make a thing legal for it to be so - or put another way is everything illegal until the state says otherwise? Does it have to actually tell itself to scrap its unenforceable laws and instruct its police to cease and desist trying to enforce it? Who is responsible for this process Parliamentarians or the courts?

[Bryan]

To me, this sounds a lot like the logic that the detax people use.

Buyer beware.