For years, marijuana cultivation, trafficking, and possession have been at the center of talks, regarding drug abuse in Canada. Enter Bill C-38, an Act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Introduced on May 27, 2003 as the “Decriminalization Bill”, it in fact deserves to be called the “Harsher Punishments Bill”. The key purposes of this bill are the “decriminalization” of the possession of small and intermediate amounts of marijuana and a reform of punishment in relation to the offence of producing marijuana. The incorrectness of the bill itself, the severely low punishments for minors, and the unnecessary stress put on the system, can only force one to believe that this bill is wrong, and is not needed within our society. (Bill C-38)
Decriminalization is defined as the removal of a behavior or activity from the scope of the criminal justice system. A thorough analysis of the bill, one will see there is no reference that says you do not get a criminal record if convicted. So how is this decriminalization? The Bill would reduce penalties pos
Cannabis Culture Magazine, 2003 [cited 16 December 2003]. Available from World Wide Web:
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