The Canadian Alliance's drug policy could go up in smoke as party MPs fight over whether marijuana should be decriminalized. Alliance justice critic Randy White, who represents the B.C. riding of Langley-Abbotsford, is drafting his party's drug policy and hopes it will recommend no jail time for those caught with less than 30 grams of pot. Vancouver-area MP Chuck Cadman said he'd support decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana. But MP Peter Goldring, of Edmonton Centre East, firmly opposes the idea.
People tripping on pot or drifting on a marijuana hangover are workplace and highway hazards.
Marijuana impairs in the same deadly way as alcohol but without the ease of roadside detection or the consistency of regulated strengths. Alliance Leader Stockwell Day, who has said he smoked pot in his youth, said he won't use his clout as Opposition leader to initiate a debate on drug legalization. He also said he would neither initiate nor support a proposal to legalize drugs such as heroin and cocaine as a way of cutting off profits and power from organized crime. Day acknowledged that prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century didn't stop people from drinking and served only to greatly empower organized crime. Keith Martin, the only B.C. Alliance MP who is a medical doctor, said people who smoke pot should be fined, not jailed.