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Cannabis Legalization in Canada

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Cannabis legalization in Canada: Prohibition, medical use legislation, pro-weed activities, and the US intervention

The cultivation and possession of cannabis is currently illegal in Canada, with exceptions only for medical usage. However, the use of cannabis by the general public is broadly tolerated, and a vigorous campaign to legalize cannabis is underway nation-wide.

Recently, the new Conservative government of Canada which won the January 23rd elections has said it will trash the legislation slated to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Cannabis Prohibition in Canada
The prohibition of cannabis began with the prohibition of opium. On September 8th, 1907, there was an anti-Asian riot in Vancouver, where a mob vandalized many of the Asian businesses. The Asian businessmen asked Ottawa for compensation, and the deputy Minister of Labour (and future Prime Minister) William Lyon Mackenzie King was sent to Vancouver to solve the problem. Instead of providing compensation, Mackenzie King justified the racist riot, blaming it on the opium dens, and created the Anti-Opium Act of 1908 - North America's first National anti-drug law. The law was racist on the surface - it forbade opium sales in Chinese opium dens but allowed it to continue in white botanical drug stores.

Judge Emily Murphy - Canada's first female judge and one of the "famous five" who fought for and won the right for women to vote - wrote a series of articles which was collected in a book called "The Black Candle" in 1922. Murphy repeated scare stories from American newspapers and ascribed the worst crimes to opium and marijuana. Murphy also saw opium as a tool the dark races used to seduce good white girls - she just added cannabis to their evil arsenal.

Canadians, who always knew hemp as "cannabis" in medical form, had never heard of "marijuana" and were scared into supporting the prohibition. In 1923, cannabis was added to the growing list of prohibited drugs, with absolutely no debate in Parliament. Some claim that the forces behind cannabis prohibition in the USA were also behind Canadian cannabis prohibition.

Current developments
Medical marijuana legislation: Health Canada permits marijuana for approved patients who can demonstrate a medical need for it.
There are cases of users of medical marijuana in the United States who, being persecuted in their own country, have fled across the border to Canada to seek asylum under the United Nations refugee convention. This began in the early part of the 2000's when the then US Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a clampdown on the use of medical marijuana in the US. Some of those who have fled are wanted by the US federal government on charges related to their use of marijuana.

Canadian pro-cannabis activity: At a federal level, the Marijuana Party of Canada is leading the campaign for cannabis legalisation. Provincial parties also exist, including the British Columbia Marijuana Party, Bloc pot, and the Marijuana Party of Nova Scotia.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is attempting to extradite Marc Emery, a cannabis activist and seed distributor from Vancouver, to the United States, where he could face a life sentence for selling seeds and laundering the profits into pro-cannabis legalization activities.

The Vancouver plan: This is a draft plan by the city authorities in Vancouver called Preventing Harm from Psychoactive Drug Use that aims to regulate the sale of cannabis.

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