I live in the cocoon of British Columbia, where people haven't been charged with simple possession for a long time; the police just seize it. You still see a lot of charges but rarely convictions, unless it's something more than simple possession. In my practice, I don't get anywhere near as many cases as I used to in the old days, even though you haven't legalized it yet. The burden has been reduced.
However, having this maximum of 14 years, hybridized by indictment, and so on, is frankly totally unrealistic in terms of what goes on on the ground. Even in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, which is not known to be the most liberal court in the country, the range for trafficking, for example, is 12 to 18 months. Most sentences are up to two years. For tobacco and alcohol, all your maximums are two and three years. This 14-year thing is ridiculous, frankly, and it's problematic because it will increase the burden in the following way.
Years ago, through the sentencing commission, through Parliament here, and so on, we determined that we had to reduce the amount of incarceration because we'd just make people worse most of the time instead of really protecting the public. Therefore, why are you going to put somebody in prison, actual prison, for trafficking in cannabis nowadays? It seems ridiculous.
A judge will introduce something called a conditional sentence order. The conditional sentence order is the last step before having to put you actually in prison. Depending upon levels of denunciation and deterrence, the judge decides whether to put you in prison. A 14-year maximum, because of the 2012 amendments, prevents a judge from doing that.
What does 14 years have to do with it when the court is sitting there saying we think that up to two years is a fit sentence, but we also think you're not a danger to the community, you don't have any violence in your history or anything such as that, so we think you can serve it in the community? The judge can't do it. What do judges do, faced with that now? They'll give probation with conditions to try to structure it like a conditional sentence order.
I really encourage you to listen to what Le Dain said at least 45 years ago and reduce that to five years if you're going to keep a hybridized system.
My hope and expectation is that the cannabis consumers who I have now watched over a long period of time are going to demonstrate to you that they will be able to live under this existing proposed beginning, if I can call it that, and will not create a lot of problems, hopefully, for the criminal courts and others, that we will effectively, in practice, legalize and demonstrate to all of you that you don't need many of these limits that you're worrying about.