Canada PM ‘open’ to softening marijuana laws

OTTAWA, Canada – Canada’s prime minister, who once decried what he called a Beatles-era drug culture, is open to softening laws against recreational marijuana use, the attorney general said Wednesday, March 5.

But the ruling Conservative caucus appears split on the issue, with some government ministers appearing to back an existing pot prohibition.

“The prime minister has signaled an openness to this (softening),” Attorney General Peter MacKay said.

Under the proposed law, police would be allowed to fine pot smokers for possession of small amounts of cannabis, instead of laying criminal charges.

“We have not arrived on the exact mechanism in which that could be done,” MacKay said, adding: “It’s not decriminalization. It’s not legalization.”

The attorney general said he met police chiefs and other stakeholders since announcing in December that he would consider reforms, and has gained support from former police others in the Conservative party for a draft bill.

But one fellow senior minister downplayed the proposed changes, while another urged Canadians to go jogging to get a so-called exercise “high” instead of smoking marijuana.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in 2007 that “simply being soft on the question” would not work and that Canadians’ views of drugs needed to change fundamentally.

“We are up against… a culture that since the 1960s has at the minimum not discouraged drug use and often romanticized it, or made it cool,” he said then.

“My son is listening to my Beatles records and asking me what all these lyrics mean… I love these records. I’m not putting them away… But we have to change the culture.”

Harper’s apparent about-face notably comes after rival Justin Trudeau’s call to legalize marijuana use.

The opposition Liberal leader, who has admitted smoking pot since being elected to parliament in 2008, has leapfrogged the prime minister in polls ahead of elections next year.

Canadian police chiefs have also urged a legislative change that would allow them to hand out fines for small amounts of pot possession instead of filing criminal charges to reduce policing and court costs, and to do away with convictions affecting Canadians’ travel, employment and citizenship.

An estimated one million out of a total 35 million Canadians regularly smoke marijuana, according to the latest surveys. – Rappler.com