Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss Bill C-15, which proposes a radical and deeply harmful change to Canada's sentencing practices.
I have a bit of a correction. Today I'm not here for the civil liberties association. I represent the Beyond Prohibition Foundation, which is a newly forming non-profit society dedicated to moving past the failed paradigm of marijuana prohibition and replacing it with a system of non-criminal-regulated possession, production, and sale of cannabis to adult Canadians. In that respect, my appearance today represents what I hope are the first steps in a shared journey out of the darkness of drug prohibition and into the light of drug policies based on reason, compassion, and justice.
I appeared before this committee just days ago to explain the reasons why drug prohibition contributes to, and indeed guarantees, the economic power and success of organized criminals. Put more bluntly, because I believe this issue leaves no room for mincing words or playing rhetorical games, this government--like every government before it since the inception of drug prohibition 100 years ago--is perpetuating a policy that directly causes death, disease, crime, and social decay. This statement, which perhaps sounds controversial, is actually not. The empirical evidence is both clear and abundant. Every major study of drug policy since the Indian hemp commission report of 1899—every single one--has found that prohibition fails to reduce the demand for drugs and fails to reduce the supply of drugs.
Tragically, drug prohibition also creates negative externalities such as violent crime associated with black markets, increased risk of disease and death from overdose, property crime associated with the artificially inflated cost of drugs in the black market, and the recruitment of young people into gangs.
When I spoke to you last Thursday, I told the tale of three eras. First I told of national alcohol prohibition in the United States and the concomitant rise in violent crime and particularly homicide, which tailed off sharply after the repeal of alcohol prohibition. Second, there was the rise and continued rise of the international drug distribution organizations since U.S. Presidents Nixon and Reagan declared and re-declared the war on drugs approach. The third era in this tale begins now, and the end is not yet written.
There are two paths ahead of Canada. One takes us down roads already travelled by us and by our American neighbours. This road is one of the increasing militarization of police forces, the exponential growth in prison populations, more violence, more death, more social decay. The Americans, as we just heard, began on this path more than 20 years ago, and the results are before our eyes. Tragically, as epitomized by Bill C-15, Canada appears poised to emulate these failed and harmful policies. Ironically, we do so just as the international community begins to move towards a consensus that a criminal law enforcement-based approach to drugs is useless at best. At its worst, it's counterproductive and dangerous.
But we have the power to change our future and to take a different road. Ending drug prohibition is a critical first step. Depriving the gangs of their primary source of revenue will deal a significant blow and reduce their power. It will remove the incentives for much of the associated violence and social disruption. Let me be clear. It is not an easy road and there are no magic solutions. The path before us will require vision, courage, and true leadership in order to admit the failures of the past and implement new approaches. Defeating this bill is a good first step on the road to sensible, evidence-based drug policy.
Defeating this bill is also the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for a multitude of reasons. Many have been explained to this committee by others more eloquent than I. So I recite, in summary form, a few of those reasons.
First, Bill C-15 will not deter crime, will not reduce drug demand, and will not reduce drug supply. This is not, frankly, a debatable point on the evidence. Craig Jones of the John Howard Society handed out on April 27 some 35 studies that universally condemn this type of legislation. There are no published, peer-reviewed studies on the other side of the balance.
Second, Bill C-15 will swell prison populations, clog our already clogged criminal courts with unnecessary trials, and serve as a gateway into gangs for first-time offenders, who will now be sentenced to mandatory prison terms.
Third, Bill C-15 will target primarily street-level dealers, further criminalize the disease of drug addiction, and mandate prison terms for non-violent marijuana sellers and producers.
Fourth, Bill C-15 further exacerbates the existing disparity in government spending, pushing more money into enforcement with a corresponding loss of funds that could be allocated to the vastly more effective and economical options of treatment and prevention.
Defeating Bill C-15 is also the right thing to do, because sentencing in Canada is and should remain offender-specific. I practised before the criminal courts in this country, and before that I practised before the criminal courts of the United States. Here in Canada we focus on the offender, because we realize that not all who come before the courts deserve the same result.
Let me tell just one story as an illustration. I'll preface it by saying that I've conducted many sentencing hearings, and in my experience the judiciary of this country does a very good job, takes many factors into consideration, and, when appropriate on the facts of the case, has no hesitation at all in sentencing offenders to long prison terms. But this bill takes away that historical discretion, with potentially tragic results. I represented a marijuana producer named Mat Beren. Mr. Beren grew marijuana for the 400 members of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, a medical marijuana dispensary. All of their members had physician support for their medical marijuana use, but very few had been able to access the legal protections of the government's Byzantine and overly restrictive marijuana medical access regulations. After a long trial on charter issues that concluded just months ago in the B.C. Supreme Court, Madam Justice Koenigsberg found some aspects of the MMAR unconstitutional but was forced to find Mr. Beren guilty of both production and possession for the purpose of trafficking cannabis for these medical users. He was growing 936 plants, which equates to about 2 plants for each patient of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society. Mr. Beren was being paid $30,000 per year, far less than a man with his ability could earn in the black market. He was producing marijuana safely, in an outbuilding of a rented property, with the consent of the homeowner. The police remarked upon executing the search warrant that they knew it wasn't a typical grow-op raid because of the professionalism with which the production facility had been put together.
If Bill C-15 had been law at the time of his sentencing, the trial judge would have been forced to sentence him to three years in prison. Instead, Mr. Beren received an absolute discharge. Indeed, the trial judge called Mr. Beren's fact pattern the clearest case for an absolute discharge she'd seen in her 16 years on the bench. She described Mr. Beren as legally culpable but not morally blameworthy. Yet, if this bill had been law, the facts wouldn't have mattered. Judicial discretion would have been nonexistent. Madam Justice Koenigsberg would not have been able to impose a fair and appropriate sentence on the facts of the case, because she wouldn't have had that option. Mr. Beren would be in jail today and for the next two years and nine months.
Enacting this legislation has often been supported by the idea that it will send a message. And so it will. Unfortunately, the message will be that appearing to take action is more important that finding real solutions, that being perceived as tough on crime is more important to this House than actually reducing crime, and that evidence is less important than ideology. These are the wrong messages. This bill is a step in the wrong direction.
Defeating Bill C-15, on the other hand, represents the first step in a journey away from the failed policies of the past and towards a drug policy paradigm that ultimately will achieve the goals that Bill C-15 simply cannot achieve. Unless we have the courage to take that first step, we will most surely fail, and in doing so we will harm the very people that we hope to protect.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.