Absolute discharge. They got a bit older, they are tax paying individuals, and somehow had their case heard and their charges wiped away. But there are an awful lot of others who may not have had the money to proceed or pursue it and still have the stigma of a criminal charge for cannabis possession.
I am not going to get into these arguments of how much constitutes possession or trafficking or anything else as I think all that will come up again in committee. It is crucially important for members of Parliament to be really honest with themselves. How is it okay for an individual in the House to drink or smoke tobacco and yet somehow feel that some other individual smoking or using cannabis is any less of a problem? In my view, they are the same.
Quite frankly, I have experienced being around people in both instances, and I can say I would much rather be around someone who smokes as compared to someone who excessively drinks and gets a little carried away.
The other point I want to make in regard to this issue is the fact that our police system, whether it is the provincial police or the RCMP, have had their resources taxed to the maximum.
I have listened to my colleagues in the Bloc talk about the number of RCMP detachments that have closed. I think we have all seen in our areas that RCMP detachments have taken on bigger and bigger areas. Pretty soon the RCMP detachments in some areas will have ridings the size of some of ours. That is how bad it seems to be getting in some areas. There is one detachment that has to cover this area, and in some cases they have to fly into communities and they do not have the resources.
From a purely economical perspective, it is ludicrous to have RCMP officers having to try to deal with simple possession charges, knowing that it will go to the courts and, as has been mentioned in numerous instances, there is no real follow-through on anything--not that I think there should be. In a good many instances even the judges have realized it is not the right thing to do, to have someone get a criminal charge on simple possession of marijuana, because they have seen this year after year and they have not seen the drastic consequences. I believe in some cases they are making sound judgments.
Now, on the issue of major grow ops and the charges that are followed through, I have had some disagreements, but I think we take every case as it happens.
From the perspective of the best utilization of our resources, just as I do not believe it is the best utilization of our resources to have a gun registry, I do not think it is the best utilization of our resources to be going after people for simple possession of cannabis. I think we need to be honest as to how we deal with these things.
About five or six years ago I was at a meeting out in B.C. in one of the areas and there were a lot of older women at this meeting. It was interesting to hear them talk about the fact that they thought cannabis should be legalized, not decriminalized. They were talking about it should be legalized because they were tired of the RCMP officers in their area having to deal with these issues when they were worried about home invasions, assaults, and all these other things happening, and they did not have the resources to deal with it.
I implore my colleagues in this House to look at this from all perspectives, not just that somehow we do not want to be seen as allowing a new drug to be legalized, but from all aspects. It is legalized in the sense that we have not been able to put any controls on that part and there is an unjust system throughout the country as to how the rules are played out. I would hope that we do not just look at this from the perspective of not wanting to appear as if we're legalizing another nasty drug. I would hope that is how we end up doing this in the House, that we look at it from all aspects.
With the one minute I have left, I just want to say that I am also greatly concerned, and I see this in my riding, that simply trying to get access to marijuana use means that a lot of young people in this case--and it is young people, because I can say that the older people do not have to contact someone directly tied to a local gang, because they know where to get their cannabis somewhere else--it means that young people are being pulled into gangs and then they cannot get out of them. That bothers me to no end.
I have seen some pretty violent situations where these young people want to get out of it and cannot, and I want that to end. I want a legalized system in place where young people, and I'm not talking about ten and eleven years old, have access.
I do not have any more time, Mr. Speaker. I know that in the future I certainly will have the time to say some more about it. Thank you very much.