In Canada this title might have read “the last oppressed majority” since 53 per cent of Canadians are in favor of decriminalizing simple possession of cannabis. Prime Minister Jean Chretien while still in office a few years ago promised to completely remove criminal penalties against possession of personal amounts of marijuana and hashish.  “But don’t light up yet,” he laughed in a moment of caution and perhaps psychic awareness. Even a psychic would have had difficulty predicting that only a few years later Jean Chretien’s successor, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would be building a vast number of new jails to house pot criminals at the same time as changing Canada’s marijuana laws to require mandatory minimum sentences for cultivating as few as 6 marijuana plants. This is the same Canada whose famous LeDain Commission inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs in 1972 decided that marijuana is much less dangerous than wine or cigarettes and recommended its legalization.

    Our former Prime Minister wants pot decriminalized. Our LeDain Commission wants marijuana and hashish decriminalized. Canadians want pot decriminalized. And yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper is using his new found power in parliament to put pot growers in jail. Pot growers and users are a soft target for right wing reformers like Harper. They are not violent. They are often uneducated and largely unorganized. They are poorly supported by the mainstream and they have been targeted, victimized and marginalized by our political system. Only under the cloak of medical marijuana use has there been any advancement of the marijuana movement and even that is under attack by this current Harper government. The advancement of the gay, lesbian and transgender group has been a positive example of what can be done for the marijuana movement-if there was a marijuana movement. The problem is that most tokers are closet tokers. Judges, teachers, law enforcement personnel and business leaders are loath to admit their crime of cannabis smoking in public. Even when they do they make jokes about not having inhaled it when they tried it. The entire matter is one of victimless crimes and yet under the guise of protecting the nation from dangerous criminals Stephen Harper’s government is attacking the least violent and least dangerous of its citizens.  Crime in Canada is down and yet Stephen Harper is building more jails and advocating mandatory jail sentences for pot growers. We are not talking about large criminal grow operations here. Anyone convicted of growing as few as three mature pot plants and three young cannabis starts (for the next cycle of cannabis growing) will be sent to jail for 6 months minimum. Judges have no power to decide who should go to jail and who should stay free under Harper’s proposed law changes. Anyone growing six or more marijuana plants faces 6 months in jail. That means anyone. Without exception. It is time for marijuana supporters to stand up and unite in opposition to the brutality of Harper’s new laws and his unnecessary new jails. If it was anyone else but pot users there would be an outcry at the unfairness of this new legislation. Pick on the gays, Jews, Muslims, Irish or Italians and look out. But pick on the humble pot smoker and no one defends their right to exist or their right to be what they want to be.  Let us remember this anecdote from Second World War era Germany.

First they came for the homosexuals and no one spoke out. Then they came for the Jews and no one spoke out. When they finally came for me there was no one left to speak out. If you do not speak against Harper’s repressive regime it may be your turn next.