Bill C-15 : Keeping up with the failing US war on drugs

Bill C-15, the Cons' latest shot at implementing the failing US war on drugs in Canada, guarantees, among other travesties, mandatory jailtime for people who grow and sell five marijuana plants.

Believe it or not, this is an improvement over their original proposal - jail time for just one plant -until the Bloc and NDP managed to leverage it up to five plants in the Committee on Justice and Human Rights hearings where this new bill was hatched - and where 13 0f the 16 expert witnesses spoke against it.

From Friday's Hansard, Jim Malloway, NDP :

"California, New York, Michigan, Delaware, Massachusetts are all repealing their mandatory minimum sentences with other states considering the same.

Former counsel to the United States House of Representatives committee on the judiciary, Eric Sterling, stated emphatically his decision to promote mandatory minimum sentences in the United States was probably "the greatest mistake of my entire career over 30 years in the practice of law".

What the Americans found was that the goal of the legislation to reduce drug use failed. The goal of safety in the communities failed. The goal of raising the prices of drugs and lowering the purity failed. The goal of reducing organized crime failed."

Yeah but they do have one in every hundred adults behind bars now, much of it petty drug crime related.

Thursday in the HoC, Keith Martin, Lib, asked why we can't "decriminalize simple possession, for example, of marijuana and allow people to have a couple of plants"?

Indeed. People receiving mandatory sentences of one year or two years less a day will wind up in the already overcrowded provincial prisons.

The Canadian Bar Association, as quoted in the HoC :

"We believe the Bill would not be effective, would be very costly, would add to strains on the administration of justice, could create unjust and disproportionate sentences and ultimately would not achieve its intended goal of greater public safety."

The Libs will have to suck it up very hard to vote for this one on Monday, as they party with the Cons like it's 1969. The NDP and the Bloc will vote against it.

Scott has a round-up of the Liberal blogger revolt; Jennifer is firing off emails. Well done, Liberal bloggers!