International News
Mexico City Mayor: Legal Marijuana Would Hurt Cartels, Is Issue of Freedom
Legalizing marijuana is an issue of personal freedom and would take money away from violent drug cartels, the mayor of Mexico City says in a new interview. “My position is always the defense of freedoms,” Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told El Universal. “I do support legalization.” Under legalization, the marijuana trade “would not be attractive for purposes of drug […]
Mexico’s Congress Announces Marijuana Legalization Debates in 2016
A leading Mexican lawmaker just announced that the country’s Congress will hold a series of debates on legalizing marijuana in the new year. “This will be an unprecedented year for Congress in terms of exchange of information, assessments and debate in which legislators and specialists participate,” Jesus Zambrano Grijalva, president of the Congress’s Permanent Committee, said […]
Canada’s Prime Minister: Legal Marijuana Is About Health and Safety, Not Money
The new prime minister of Canada, who campaigned on legalizing marijuana, said Thursday that he wants the country to take the time it needs to get the details right and that it’s important for the government make its cannabis policy decisions for the right reasons. Ending prohibition “was never about a money maker. It was always about public health, […]
Canada’s Health Minister Studying Marijuana Legalization Models
Canada’s brand new top health official is actively looking into the best way for the country to legalize marijuana.
Minister of Health Jane Philpott, who assumed office a little more than three weeks ago, told the CBC that government scientists are already briefing her on possible legal regulations for cannabis.
“The world is going to be looking to Canada to make sure we do the job well,” she said.
Even though the government doesn’t yet know all the details of how it wants to regulate marijuana, Philpott didn’t hesitate to harshly criticize the current prohibition model.
“I think if any of your viewers, if they ask their teenage children, they can verify for them that [marijuana]is far too accessible. And obviously there’s issues around safety and concentrations that are available in certain products are very dangerous,” she said. “Often the products are not pure, and that’s something that’s a serious health concern for us.”
The health minister told CBC that in order to craft the best possible regulations for cannabis, the government will convene a task force of experts who can apply prior experience with other legal products like tobacco.
Earlier this month, newly sworn-in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directed Philpott and two other cabinet officials, the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness and the minister of justice, to begin working together to craft a plan to legally regulate marijuana.
Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which won a strong majority in last month’s federal elections, included support for legalization in its official platform. During the campaign, Trudeau pledged to begin work on ending prohibition “right away” if elected.
The Conservative Party, which ruled Canada for nearly a decade prior to the election, regularly attacked Trudeau’s legalization plans during the campaign but declined to respond to a request for comment from CBC about the new government’s moves.
Philpott is confident her department will have the public support it needs to craft and implement an effective marijuana policy. “Most thoughtful Canadians recognize that the current system isn’t working and they’re looking to us to make sure we make a wise decision,” she said.
Canada Officially Begins Move Toward Legalizing Marijuana
Canada’s new prime minister was only sworn in less than two weeks ago, but he has already directed his government to begin the process that will lead to the nationwide legalization of marijuana.
“I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and Cabinet processes to deliver on your top priorities [including]a federal-provincial-territorial process that will lead to the legalization and regulation of marijuana,” Prime Minster Justin Trudeau wrote to Jody Wilson-Raybould, the country’s new justice minister and attorney general.
The move is in keeping with a campaign pledge to begin formulating a plan to end prohibition “right away.” Support for legalization was also included in the official platform of Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which swept the country’s October 19 federal elections with a strong majority.
It is unclear how long it will take the new government to formulate and enact a system to tax and regulate marijuana, or what its specifics will include, but the early move by Trudeau is an indication he intends to follow through on what he promised during the campaign. Parliament is scheduled to resume on December 3.
Trudeau also directed the health and public safety and emergency preparedness ministers to assist Wilson-Raybould in formulating the plan for legal marijuana in separate letters made public on Friday.
As Canada moves forward with legalization to the U.S.’s north, marijuana reform is also on the rise south of the border, in Mexico. The Supreme Court there ruled earlier this month that growing cannabis for personal use and distribution should be a right. While the ruling only currently applies to the four plaintiffs who brought the case, it has caused shockwaves around the world and could ultimately lead to nationwide legalization if the court takes up additional cases and rules similarly. Separately, last week, a senator from the country’s ruling party introduced a bill to legalize the importation of medical marijuana.
And the U.S. is just fine with these moves, according to a State Department official. “It’s up to the people of each nation to decide policies,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, said at a press conference in response to questions about the growing marijuana reform momentum in Canada and Mexico.
Within U.S. borders, marijuana is currently legal in four states and the District of Columbia. It is expected that at least five other states will vote on ballot measures to end marijuana prohibition next November, and advocates believe that a handful of state legislatures could enact legalization even sooner.
State Department: Canada and Mexico Can Legalize Marijuana If They Want
Signaling a continued shift in U.S. posture toward drug policy reform in other countries, a federal official said on Thursday that Canada and Mexico should be able to legalize marijuana if they want to.
“It’s up to the people of each nation to decide policies,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, said in a press briefing. “And in this case, it’s up to the people of Mexico to decide which drug policies are most appropriate for their country within the framework of international law.”
Kirby was responding to a journalist who asked about a Mexican Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday which could result in the legalization of marijuana. The reporter also cited the swearing in this week of new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who pledged during his election campaign to end cannabis prohibition “right away” after taking office.
Historically, the U.S. has pressured other countries to maintain a prohibitionist approach under international drug control treaties. But under the Obama administration, as voters in a growing number of U.S. states have legalized marijuana within the nation’s own borders, the State Department has taken a more respectful approach based on an evolving interpretation of the treaties which sees flexibility for countries to move away from prohibition.
Referring to those treaties, Kirby said that the U.S. is “firmly committed to the three UN drug conventions,” adding that they are “the foundation of international cooperation for dealing with all aspects of the drug problem.”
He noted the U.S.’s view that “the conventions allow for a degree of flexibility on how member-states implement their obligations, particularly with respect to drug use, and the conventions anticipate variations in national legal frameworks.”
The remarks are in line with what other top State officials have said in the recent past, but are particularly notable in the context of the recent big moves happening both north and south of the U.S.’s borders.
Last year, William Brownfield, the assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs said, “The first of [the drug control treaties]was drafted and enacted in 1961. Things have changed since 1961. We must have enough flexibility to allow us to incorporate those changes into our policies.”
He asked, “How could I, a representative of the government of the United States of America, be intolerant of a government that permits any experimentation with legalization of marijuana if two of the 50 states of the United States of America have chosen to walk down that road?”
(Those remarks were made before Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C. joined Colorado and Washington State in voting to legalize marijuana.)
In separate remarks earlier this year, Brownfield, referring to Jamaica’s move to decriminalize marijuana, said “we must have tolerance and accept that different countries will address their drug issues in different ways so long as they are committed to the fundamental purposes of [international drug control treaties]and that is to reduce the damage, to reduce the harm and eventually to reduce the abuse of these products.”
The State Department’s increasingly respectful view of drug policy reform abroad clearly stems from U.S. voters in a growing number of states forcing the issue by enacting change at the ballot box: If the U.S. can’t keep legal marijuana out of its own backyard, how can federal officials, with a straight face, tell other nations that they can’t end prohibition too?
The growing boldness of international leaders to champion moves away from the war on drugs is itself spurred by a realization that the U.S. apparently will no longer dangle threats to withdraw foreign aid, for example, in front of other nations that want to enact reforms.
And the fact that Canada and Mexico are now seriously moving toward legalizing marijuana is itself likely to bolster efforts to legalize marijuana in even more U.S. states.
All of these factors have created a feedback loop of sorts where each new jurisdiction that enacts reform propels efforts in nearby places, to the point where marijuana may be legal across all of North America (and perhaps beyond) way before many observers thought would be possible.
Justin Trudeau and Marijuana: Like Father, Like Son
The recent victory in Canada by Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party, a landslide triumph that ended nearly a decade of rule by the Conservative Party, promises a significant change in the politics of Canada in a number of policy areas, including a boost in spending to stimulate the economy; raising taxes on the wealthy; and legalizing marijuana.
Stephen Harper, head of the Conservative Party, attempted to use marijuana legalization as a wedge issue against Trudeau in the recent campaign, making the rather bizarre claim that marijuana is “infinitely worse” than tobacco (an estimated 37,000 Canadians die each year from tobacco smoking). His allegation fell flat with the voters and likely helped Trudeau demonstrate the need for new, fresh and more innovative and honest leadership.
Trudeau has long favored the legalization of marijuana, publicly acknowledging his own past use of weed (including an admission of smoking when he was a member of Parliament). Shortly after the recent Liberal Party victory, he announced legalization would move forward as one of his top priorities. We share a common border stretching nearly 4,000 miles, and whatever occurs in the U.S. inevitably has an impact on Canada. It appears our domestic experience with marijuana legalization has favorably impacted attitudes in Canada, and they too are now ready for a tax and regulate regimen.
The First Prime Minister Trudeau
This needed change in Canadian marijuana policy reminds some of us of earlier times when Canada had a far more progressive and tolerant marijuana policy than the U.S., going back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was the Prime Minister. Pierre Trudeau served as prime minister from 1968 to 1979, and again from 1980 to 1984. He was a dominant political presence who, with his glamorous wife Margaret Trudeau, was part of the fast-lane crowd during the 1970s, famously partying with the Rolling Stones; hanging-out at then-popular Studio 54 in New York; and, in a strange moment in a Washington Post news article, once publicly invited disillusioned young Americans to visit Canada, promising they would not be harassed if they brought along a couple of joints.
This was during the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement, when young Americans burning their draft cards and long hair and marijuana smoking were all part of the cultural rebellion that would transform American society and eventually bring that war to an end. Canada, and Pierre Trudeau, were generally opposed to the war, and supportive of U.S. draft resisters (offering them asylum in Canada) and others who were working to stop the killing.
Raising the “Pierre Trudeau Defense”
It was this public invitation to visit Canada that led me to raise the “Pierre Trudeau defense,” when I was busted with a joint entering Canada to give a college lecture in Calgary in the mid-1970s.
I was (obviously) not familiar with the rigors of international travel at the time, and had stuck a joint in the pocket of my sports coat to share with the students when the lecture was over. We usually went back to someone’s apartment after a college lecture, where the students would generally pass around a joint of whatever weed was available on the black market, at prices most students could afford, and frequently it was not high quality – what we might call “ditch weed” today. So I always enjoyed bringing a joint from my own stash – high quality homegrown – to share with the students, to let them experience the better marijuana that was available if one had the right connections on the black market.
As further evidence of my naiveté, I also was wearing a gold marijuana-leaf lapel pin on my sports coat, oblivious to the fact that the marijuana pin might well bring closer scrutiny as I entered the county. I almost made it through Customs without a problem, but at the last minute, one of the officers recognized my pin, and decided to stop me and search my pockets, where he found the joint.
As I was being taken into custody, a group of the students who were meeting me to take me to the lecture saw what was happening, and someone had the good sense to bring the lecture fee that I would have received, to use as bail, so I could get out of custody and deliver the lecture on schedule later that night.
When I returned in a few weeks to go to trial, my old friend Gerry Goldstein, a young Texas criminal defense attorney who was then heading Texas NORML, accompanied me as my attorney. Since we knew possession of a single joint in Canada would bring, at most, a slap on the wrist and a modest fine, we decided to engage in some street theater, and to make it into a show trial, at which we put on the “Pierre Trudeau defense”.
I was never quite sure why Trudeau had made that statement. Perhaps he simply wanted to demonstrate how hip he and his wife were, since they were known to have smoked marijuana with the Rolling Stones at some point. Regardless, it sure sounded like something that might help me justify my actions in Canada, and it would surely make good theater for the media.
So attorney Goldstein first introduced a copy of the Washington Post article into evidence, and then had me take the stand, and under oath, say I admitted bringing the joint into Canada, but insisting that I had done it on the reliance that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had assured me (and other young Americans) that we would not be hassled.
It was obviously not a legal defense, but it did have a certain appeal to the media, and seemed to further NORML’s position that there is nothing wrong with smoking pot.
The judge saw the humor in what we were doing, and allowed us to put on our defense, but then convicted me (on my own testimony), imposed a modest fine, and sent me on my way home, none the worse for wear. It had been exhilarating to challenge the system, and we felt we had successfully pushed the policy envelope by being so out-front and unapologetic about my marijuana smoking.
Busted Again, On the Way Out of the Country
But then things turned ugly. On our way through customs as we were leaving the country, still beaming from the fact that we had pulled-off our legal street theater without harm, the Canadian customs officials found an empty one-gram cocaine vial which I had inadvertently left in my shoulder bag, with trace amounts of cocaine still in the bottle, and I was taken back into custody. Suddenly, this little Canadian joke did not seem so humorous, and especially not to the prosecutor or the judge who had just allowed us to pull-off our stunt in his courtroom.
I was thrown in jail overnight, and the following morning Goldstein arranged for me to plead guilty to the new cocaine charge, pay a larger fine, and finally get out of the country, with a warning that I would never be permitted back into the country. (In fact, I have since been back to Canada on several occasions, so apparently someone saw fit to remove me from the list of banned travelers at some point.)
But all these many years later, when I hear the name Trudeau as the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, I cannot help but smile as I remember the good-old-days, when a combination of youth and naiveté allowed us to live close to the edge, with little or no fear of the consequences.
Today I lead a far less dangerous lifestyle!
State Department Highlights Global Anti-Marijuana Discrimination Against Rastafarians
A new report from the U.S. Department of State shines a spotlight on how anti-marijuana laws around the world further religious discrimination against Rastafarians.
The 2014 Report on International Religious Freedom, released Wednesday by Secretary of State John Kerry, “attempts to give voice to those oppressed people and to document when and where the universal human right to religious freedom was violated.”
In nearly 200 country-by-country summaries, the document details discrimination that people of various faiths face from governments and non-state actors, and quite a bit of attention is paid to the plight of Rastafarians who are criminalized for using marijuana — an important sacrament for many in the religion.
Rastafarians in Barbados, for example “were concerned about the government’s prohibition on marijuana use, which they said was integral to their religious rituals,” the report says. “Rastafarians reported extra scrutiny from police and immigration officials” as a result.
In Jamaica, “Rastafarians stated that elements of their religious observance, such as wearing dreadlocks and smoking marijuana, presented serious barriers to their ability to find employment and achieve professional status,” the State Department writes.
“Rastafarian leaders stated their members continued to experience police profiling and targeting due to their belief in the religious use of marijuana,” the report’s section on The Bahamas says. “They also expressed concern that prison officials cut the dreadlocks of Rastafarian detainees held in short-term custody, and that prisoners at Bahamas Correctional Services were not regularly provided with meals that met their religious dietary requirements.”
Anti-marijuana discrimination against Rastafarians is also reported in Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
In Panama, Rastafarians appear to have experienced so much discrimination that many have felt compelled to compromise the full expression of their faith. “Rastafarian leaders reported that arbitrary strip searches by police agents decreased significantly over the last decade since the international Rastafarian leadership decided to improve the group’s image by wearing tam hats and refraining from smoking cannabis in public,” the State Department writes.
As marijuana legalization gains popularity around the world and anti-cannabis stigma begins to dissipate, however, things appear to be improving in some places. “While some Rastafarians stated they had also experienced other forms of societal discrimination,” the report says of Jamaica, “others said such discrimination had diminished considerably in recent years, especially as Rastafarian styles in clothing and music gained wider acceptance.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the State Department report neglects to discuss the fact that the U.S. federal government does not recognize any religious exemption to existing laws that treat use, possession or cultivation of marijuana as criminal acts subject to arrest, fine and incarceration.
This May, for example, a judge in Indiana rejected a man’s request to reduce marijuana charges on account of the fact that he is a practicing Rastafarian. That is just one of numerous cases over decades in which state and federal courts in the U.S. have rejected arguments that marijuana use can be a legitimate religious activity and in such instances should not be criminalized.
Leaked Report: UK Legalization Would Generate 100s of Millions for Government
Legalizing marijuana in the United Kingdom would generate new tax revenues and savings totaling over half a billion pounds, according to a newly leaked report from the nation’s Treasury.
The analysis finds that ending cannabis prohibition and legalizing sales could “generate noteable tax revenue” somewhere in the range of £397-£871 million per year and says that lessened enforcement would “lead to overall savings to public services” by an estimated £211 annually.
Not having to chase down, arrest and process cannabis users would save approximately 672,000 hours of police time every year, the report indicates.
The analysis was commissioned months ago by then-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg but was kept under wraps until Monday, when it was leaked to the The Independent newspaper and BBC’s Newsnight program.
The document came to light on the same day Members of Parliament convened a debate on marijuana law reform that was spurred by an online government petition that garnered more than 200,000 signatures.
The report also notes that “evidence suggests that alcohol and tobacco – both legal – may cause greater harm” than cannabis. And whereas U.S. states that have ended prohibition have set the age for legal use at 21, the Treasury calculations assume that the U.K.’s legal age would be 18.
In addition to legalization’s economic impact, the report details some additional benefits that ending prohibition would have, such as mandated potency and purity testing on marijuana, sting operations to curtail underage sales and licensing conditions that would help keep the market under control.
Prime Minister David Cameron remains opposed to legalizing marijuana for now, but reform advocates say that the new report could boost the debate further into the mainstream to the point that ending prohibition will eventually become a political reality.
“We have a Conservative government who have not responded to rational argument on drug reform historically — but who are facing a massive deficit and struggling with unpopular cuts to public services,” Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst with Transform Drug Policy Foundation, told Marijuana.com in an email. “In this context a strong economic argument from a trusted source can change minds where more established social justice arguments have failed. The government is doing its own cost-benefit analysis, but a political one — and a report like this can only helps tip the scales in favour of change.”
Read the leaked report in full here.