On June 8, the House of Commons passed a bill to institute mandatory minimum sentencing for marijuana and other drug crimes.

Bill C-15 seeks to impose mandatory minimum penalties for marijuana and other drug offences, including 6 months for 5 marijuana plants.

Marc Emery, the founder of the BC Marijuana Party and publisher of Cannabis [Culture], is currently facing extradition to the United States on charges of distribution of marijuana seeds.

Recently, Emery announced he intends to plead guilty to the charges in exchange for a reduced sentence, to be served in the United States.

“Stephen Harper hates the marijuana culture. First they went after me, now they’re renewing their attack on the overall culture,” said Emery in a press release from Cannabis Culture. “If marijuana people don’t stand up against C-15, they’ll find their freedom replaced with the bars of a jail cell.”

The bill has been widely criticized by criminal justice experts, who point to the total failure of mandatory minimum sentencing in the United States to deter or reduce the amount of drug crimes occurring.

via News Article – Cord Weekly.

But who listens to experts these days, anyway.  So what if mandatory minimum sentencing has no effect on marijuana use, but a dramatically disastrous effect on our society and rates of incarceration?  That’s not what Stephen Harper and conservatives of his ilk care about, anyway.  It’s about votes.  It’s about being “tough on crime”.  It’s about culture war.  It’s about hating “hippies”.

What Harper is about to discover, however, is that marijuana is no longer the third-rail redheaded-stepchild political-football issue it used to be.  When only a quarter of the people supported legalization, when medical marijuana was still considered an oxymoron, and when few knew the difference between cannabis, coke, and crystal meth, you could beat the scary drug war drums and create a “tough on crime” aura around yourself.  But now a majority of Canadians support legalization, medical marijuana is grown by the government, and most people know full well that pot ain’t crack.

Stephen Harper’s about to get a lesson Michael Phelps and Kellogg’s know too well: we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore!

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Democrat introduces bill to end mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses via rawstory.com

Maxine Waters has just introduced The Major Drug Trafficking Prosecution Act of 2009 in the House. This bill would remove the mandatory minimums found in drug laws and give discretion back to the judge.

“This legislation will refocus federal prosecutorial resources on major drug traffickers and eliminate racial disparities created by the mandatory minimum sentences for power and crack cocaine,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who authored the bill

“In the 1980s, Congress passed two Anti-Drug Abuse Acts with the goal that federal prosecutors would go after major drug traffickers at the top of the food chain, instead of low-level drug offenders at the bottom,” Waters continued. “Lengthy mandatory minimum sentences were passed for most drug crimes. These mandatory terms are based solely on the weight and the drug involved, and, with very few exceptions, the courts cannot sentence below them.”

“Twenty years later,” she added, “mandatory drug sentences have utterly failed to achieve Congress’ goals.”

The text of the bill can be found here.  Her floor statement introducing the bill can be found here.

[Updated from previous post -- "R"R]

News – Pair get prison in pot case – sacbee.com
An El Dorado County couple – a physician and an attorney – were sentenced Wednesday in Sacramento federal court to five years in prison for conspiring to grow and distribute marijuana.

U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. said federal law left him with no choice but to impose on both Dr. Marion “Mollie” Fry and attorney Dale Schafer the mandatory minimum sentence.

But, to the delight of supporters who packed the courtroom, the judge allowed the pair to remain free on bail until their appeals have been decided.

The statutory minimum applied because of the number of plants – at least 100 – found by a jury in August to be the crux of a conspiracy to grow and distribute pot from their offices in Cool and their home in Greenwood.

Were it left up to him, the judge said, the punishment would be less. “It is a sad day, a terrible day,” he said.

At the conclusion of a grueling, emotional hearing, Damrell ruled the couple could remain free on $25,000 bail each pending the outcome of their appeals.

Mandatory minimum sentencing seems to me to be against the intent of the Framers of our Constitution. They wanted a government with checks and balances – Congress makes laws, but the President can check that with a veto. Presidents can sign laws, but courts can check that against constitutionality. But to take away the discretion of the judge to impose a sentence she feels is appropriate to the facts and circumstances of the case, and instead vest that authority in the statutes passed by Congress and signed by the President, makes the judge merely a rubber stamp for the judgment-free minimums passed by a Congress trying to appear to be “tough on crime”. (Visit Families Against Mandatory Minimums for more info.)

But there is one last check – the jury. Juries have the right of nullification – they can check any bad law by simply refusing to convict, regardless of the facts, evidence, or circumstances. A jury can simply say, “We refuse to convict this couple because the law itself is unjust,” even if they were caught growing a billion marijuana plants. Learn more about jury nullification at the Fully Informed Jury Association.

(HuffingtonPost) Hillary Clinton has come out against making retroactive the small change in sentencing guidelines that allows some people convicted under the overly harsh crack laws to have their sentences reviewed by a judge, and if they are found eligible, given early release. Most blacks affected will still serve more than a decade in prison for a nonviolent crime for which whites often escape incarceration entirely– but nevermind.

Hillary has bought into fears that this means a sudden massive release of an army of Willie Hortons. But over 90% of crack prisoners sentenced under these laws have no record of violent crime– and 94% were not classified as “kingpins” or even mid-level drug dealers. Further, the judge reviewing the sentences provides a safety net to ensure that those who are a risk to the public are not released early.

Obama, meanwhile, supports making the sentencing change retroactive. Even though politically, given his admission about his own drug use, he has far more to lose than she does by doing the right thing.

I remember when Bill Clinton was running in 1992. Here was a likable guy who had at least been around marijuana, even if he “didn’t inhale”, and he played saxophone, leading me to believe he’d at least been around some people who smoke marijuana. I was excited by the idea that we’d finally have a president who realized how destructive our War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs really is.

When Clinton came into office, there were about 300,000 arrests nationally of marijuana smokers. By the time he left, there were about 700,000. When California passed Prop 215 legalizing medical cannabis in the state, it was Bill Clinton’s administration that sent the jack-booted federal thugs to raid dispensaries and arrest patients.

Now we have Barack Obama, a candidate who, when asked about his admitting to marijuana use in his youth, said, “I inhaled, frequently. That was the point.” Would he finally be the president who does something positive to end the drug war? Or would he turn out like Bill Clinton and turn his back on us cannabis consumers?

I think this view on the crack sentencing provides us a glimpse into the possible administrations of the two Democratic candidates. Both have pledged they would end DEA raids on medical cannabis states; however, Hillary Clinton keeps touting her years of experience in the Clinton White House as First Lady, and that White House started the raids. If Hillary Clinton can’t support something as moral as fixing the racist laws on crack sentencing (5g of crack — inner city black’s cocaine — gets you the same sentence as 500g of powder — suburban white’s cocaine), I don’t much expect her to be any better on the marijuana issue.