Bill C-15 nails tenants growing medicinal marijuana
About one-third of the 24 cultivators contracted to grow medicinal marijuana exclusively for the B.C. Compassion Club Society will be affected if the minority Conservative government’s Bill C-15 becomes law. The bill is seeking mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders.
Jacob Hunter, policy director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation, told the Georgia Straight by phone that as a result of Senate amendments, growers who own homes can cultivate up to 200 plants and not face a mandatory minimum. “If they are renting, however, and even if they are a medicinal grower, one plant is a nine-month mandatory minimum,” he said.
Jeet-Kei Leung, communications coordinator at the society’s Commercial Drive cannabis dispensary, told the Straight “there are a dozen different ways in which this is bad news.”
Leung dismissed the Conservatives for being “stuck in the 1950s”. However, he didn’t spare the federal Liberals, who have almost unanimously followed the governing party through three readings of Bill C-15 in the House of Commons. If the House approves Senate amendments, only royal assent separates the bill from becoming law.
Jeet-Kei Leung, communications coordinator with the B.C. Compassion Club Society, addresses the Senate earlier this month about the impacts of Conservative Bill C-15.
“The focus now is about impressing on the Liberals that it’s going to be a much, much bigger political disaster for them if they support this bill, this bill goes through, and then we start seeing all these decent and productive citizens of our country being put into prison because they are cannabis cultivators,” Leung said.
If he could, Leung would cut out anything in the bill that criminalizes marijuana cultivation. In a Straight interview earlier this year, Vancouver South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh dismissed ending the prohibition of marijuana as a means of eliminating the criminal element.
“Look, there’s not a panacea in this case,” Dosanjh said at the time. “I know there are people who believe that just because we legalize this, somehow it’s going to go away. I don’t think there’s a panacea.”
Vancouver Quadra Liberal MP Joyce Murray, like Dosanjh, voted in favour of Bill C-15. Murray did not return a call by deadline. Neither did Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore, another yes vote.
Leung added that “Bill C-15 is not going to affect demand” for cannabis. “So who’s going to fill the void in the market when this huge cottage industry leaves?” he asked. “It’s going to be organized crime. It’s going to be exactly the people who have the infrastructure, the ruthlessness, and the resources to take over the market. And they’re actually going to be the ones who benefit from this bill. That’s the cruel irony of it.”
Kirk Tousaw, executive director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation, told the Straight: “The bill is being returned to the House of Commons because the Senate amended the legislation that was sent to them.
Tousaw, 2005 civic campaign manager for “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery, added: “Presumably, there is a chance—there remains a chance—that the House of Commons could take action that would delay or frustrate implementation of this legislation. Obviously, anybody that has a rational view of what the outcomes of the drug policy in this country should be ought to be in favour of our Parliament doing anything it can to prevent this bill from becoming law.”
Tousaw said that in the event Prime Minister Stephen Harper opts to prorogue Parliament again, Bill C-15 will die on the order paper.
Comments
24 Comments
KCintheHorse
Dec 23, 2009 at 9:26am
Lets call C-15 what it is: a manifestation of the inherent stupidity of our leaders and the most regressive social policy passed by the Canadian Parliament in the last 30 years.
Oh boy
Dec 23, 2009 at 11:47am
Pot smokers grow up, get off your addiction. You are a minority trying to hold a majority voice. I'm all for tough laws and real penalties. For a lot of people in the downtown east side pot was just the stepping stone to crack and other substance abuse (and yes I work with people in the DTES, so it is an educated statement). You think that decriminalizing pot will reduce gang activity... ha... they'll just continue with other types of drugs and they'll be no change.
Craig Hill - The Valley Voice
Dec 23, 2009 at 12:05pm
This is the government controlling what substances people put into their own bodies. It's about total control of people in every aspect. As if people can't make their own decisions for themselves.
The tories and the libs need to be ousted.
Tony_42
Dec 23, 2009 at 2:54pm
Legalize it. It is beneficial medically and even cures some cancers (google Rick Simpson "Run from the Cure"). Anybody like "Oh boy" who is pushing the "gateway" theory is a liar. Prohibition is what allows youth to be exposed to the bad drugs because the same person that sells cannabis may also sell the other drugs as well. We need to end prohibition to make our streets safer. This would take the profit out of organized criminal hands. Prohibition doesn't work and to continue the same behavior over and over again expecting different results is insane. Any politician who voted yes on C-15 can go straight to hell.
Jeff H 69
Dec 23, 2009 at 4:46pm
what is the real gateway drug? booze. what do you try first when you're a kid-booze because most homes have it & it's socially acceptable. opiates are a legal drug through prescription so why can't marijuana? it's benefits are well documented & proven. The Canadian Government needs to get with the times! the stuff can help people so why not. booze is legal & it kills people..smokes are legal & look what they do to people's lives
Mike Moeller
Dec 23, 2009 at 4:47pm
Bill C-15 can and will destroy lives of decent tax paying citizens. It will cost the rest of Canada to house these decent mostly family people in terrible institutions for some thing that is in the best interest of the country to decriminalize as it it less harmfull than cigarettes or alcohol. GET IT RIGHT OTTAWA!! DO THE REAL RESEARCH ON THIS!!!
John Law
Dec 24, 2009 at 2:56am
It's a big world out there Oh boy, perhaps you should step outside.
Swanee
Dec 24, 2009 at 10:48am
A 9 month mandatory minimum prison sentence for growing a single plant? ...but I can unload a full firearm magazine into a crowd on Yonge street - during the busiest shopping day of the year - kill someone, and be back on the street in 12 years.
The conservatives are a bunch of small-minded douche-bags!
Reh
Dec 24, 2009 at 12:07pm
People who think that marijuana is a 'gateway drug' should get a reality check - Everyone I've ever asked about this issue says they started drinking alcohol before trying anything else. But heaven forbid we criminalize alcohol, a substance hundreds of times more destructive than pot.
Mr. Leung is undeniably correct in saying that this would only serve to fuel organized crime. There is no refuting that statement - What false logic it is to think that just because more individuals are going to go to jail, that less people are going to purchase pot. When the government sees a spike in organized crime concering marijuana grow-ops, they'll counter-intuitively argue that pot needs to be criminalized even further, forever blind to the fact that the only reason a grower would buy guns and knives is because what he is doing is perceived as 'illegal'. If it were legal, why would he bother wasting money on weapons when all he really wants to do is just grow and supply people with something they want?
It's a booming industry, just like anything else. If Home Hardware were suddenly outlawed tomorrow, don't you think that all the share-holders and store-owners would rally against the government and sell their wares on the black market, anyway? When people are making good money like that, they don't give up so easily. Home Hardware has a lot of faithful customers too, who would buy these 'black market' goods and agree that the government is just being downright stupid in its actions. (replace "Home Hardware" with "Marijuana" in this paragraph, and we've got a model for reality)
Charles
Dec 24, 2009 at 5:39pm
The mandatory minimums are stupid, especially as they let violent losers and molesters off too easy. The problem for our grow industry is the Hells Angels thugs and other gangsters who are growing it in huge amounts. They love the black market money and they grow weed with chemicals, pesticides and other garbage. They are a bunch of monsters. If the government could figure out a way to pass a law to put all of them away, I would support it.