Any confirmation on if it's true that they have until January 31st???
Monday, December 15, 2003
Marijuana laws face another court battle
Top court's ruling a threat to restored possession rules
Shannon Kari
The Ottawa Citizen
TORONTO -- The recently restored prohibition against marijuana
possession could be thrown out again in a matter of weeks, depending
on the outcome of a widely anticipated case heard by the Supreme
Court of Canada last spring.
The court must rule by Jan. 31 on an appeal by two British Columbia
men and an Ontario resident, who argued that potential criminal
penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana are
unconstitutional. The three litigants said the ban violates Charter
rights to life, liberty and security of the person by criminalizing
activity that does not cause harm.
"There is no free-standing right to get stoned," responded the
federal government in documents filed with the court before it heard
oral arguments.
The top court decision follows a series of rulings that resulted in
a nearly five-month period during which marijuana possession was
legal in Ontario and forced the government to amend medical
marijuana policy.
However, advocates of less restrictive marijuana laws in Canada say
an easing of the rules is unlikely now that Paul Martin is prime
minister. They also criticize the Justice Department for its
increasingly hardline attitude in marijuana prosecutions and Health
Canada for failing to comply with court rulings in medical marijuana
cases.
"It is overly optimistic to think that the Martin government is
going to re-introduce Bill C-38," said Paul Burstein, a Toronto
lawyer who represented one of the appellants in the Supreme Court
case.
Bill C-38 would have provided for fines instead of criminal charges
for people possessing small amounts of marijuana. The bill died
after Parliament prorogued last month.
The Justice Department is also in the process of staying nearly
4,000 marijuana possession charges laid between August 2001 and
October 2003, to comply with a recent Ontario Court of Appeal ruling.
But defence lawyers in Ontario and B.C. say the federal government
is increasingly seeking jail sentences for first offenders who are
low level participants in grow operations.
The Justice Department has also appealed an Ontario court decision
that found it was an infringement of privacy rights for police to
use infrared aerial cameras to try to detect excess heat in homes.
As well, Justice Department spokesman Pat-rick Charette, said "it's
back to the old rules" in the prosecution of marijuana possession
offences.
The Ontario appeal court ruled in October there had been no valid
ban against marijuana possession for two years because the federal
government failed to comply with an earlier ruling to introduce
legislation with an exemption for authorized medical users
The Court of Appeal decision also upheld a lower court ruling that
Health Canada's medical marijuana rules were unconstitutional
because they forced authorized users to rely on the "black market."
The appeal court amended the regulations to allow someone with a
designated-person production licence (DPL) "to be compensated, to
grow for more than one authority-to- possess holder, and to combine
their growing with more than two other DPL holders."
Ironically, Health Canada may already be in violation of the Court
of Appeal decision.
On Dec. 8, it announced people with DPL licences may grow for only
one client and "not more than three holders of licences to produce
can cultivate together."
Contact:
[email protected]
Back to top of Document