This is a simple outline of my concern regarding the coverage of Canada's new drug law. This law was known as "Bill C-85", "Bill C-7" and "Bill C-8" at various times during it's creation, but now that it is law it is known as "the controlled drugs and substances act".
I monitored the Bill's coverage in all the major media in Canada from the year 1993 to the present day. While I cannot make the claim to have captured every news clipping about the bill, I do believe I found most of them, and most certainly collected all that was recently written about it in both the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province.
These newspapers, according to the BC press council, have a responsibility to "defend the freedom of the Press in the interest of the public". The above newspapers never once (1) attempted to find justification for the bill, or (2) investigated the possible consequences of the bill. Therefore, I feel that the coverage of this bill did not meet the needs of the public, was not carried out "in the interest of the public" and therefore failed to meet the code of practice.
As well as these sins of omission, according to the code, newspapers must "guard against deliberate or careless publication of inaccuracies or statements designed to mislead". Both the above newspapers featured information about the bill (the front page of the Sun and featured prominently in the Province - page A2, and again in a full page feature article - please see the supplementary info. and the article I wrote on page 20 of Cannabis Canada #6 [not yet online. -ed]) that was false and misleading. For this reason also I feel that the coverage of this bill failed to meet the code of practice.
On top of the code of practice, Southam Newspapers has a Publishing Credo which states that newspapers should "encourage active discussion in their pages of all aspects of society. Their newspapers should present an accurate and balanced picture.....they should bring to the public the widest range of news, information, comment and interpretation, subject only to general good taste and the laws governing obscenity, slander, libel and sedition....Freedom of the press is a right of all Canadians, and one that publishers should preserve and defend." Due to the sins of omission and prominent inaccuracies surrounding the new drug law, I feel these newspapers did not present an "accurate and balanced picture", and therefore they failed to live up to their own publishing credo.
I understand that it is the practice of the press council to use a recent clipping or article to examine public concerns, and I have decided to use June 14th, 1996 for the Vancouver Sun and May 19, 1996 for the Province, although much of the criticism could apply to each and every article on the new drug laws published by these newspapers.
An item in the June 14th, 1996 Vancouver Sun announced the passage of Bill C-8. It mentioned that "The senators have chickened out on pot - a Senate committee backed away Thursday from recommending decriminalization for simple possession of marijuana".
In a May 18th Van. Sun. article there was ample coverage of some senators supporting decrim, with the "health approach" reason given.
Nowhere in the June 14th article was a reason given for their "backing away" from the "health approach".
If a reporter had asked the obvious question, he or she would have found out the very newsworthy fact that the Senators didn't have any reason for backing away from the health approach.
The senators did give two excuses (in other media): (1) that parliament wouldn't accept decriminalization, and that (2) the international treaties that Canada has signed wouldn't allow for decriminalization.
Right away these excuses should have been seen to be fraudulent. (1) The senate is not a rubber stamp for parliament (though it's admission that it is a rubber stamp is front-page news in and of itself). (2) Holland and the US have both signed all the same international treaties that Canada has, and both countries have experimented with decrim.
If the senators are really pressed by a persistent reporter, they would tell you that the real reason that they backed away is that the Justice and Health departments insisted that the opportunity for the "good things" found within the bill would be lost, if the senators refused to pass the bill right away "as is". These "good things" are the formal decriminalization of the hemp stalk (not the leaves and flowers, but the stalk).
The Health and Justice departments fooled the senators - no one was being charged for possession of hemp stalk - it was a non-issue, a superficial environmental benefit exchanged for a massive increase of police powers and repression of the Canadian cannabis community.
Aside from the lack of justification for the bill, the lack of an examination of consequences for this bill was appalling.
The short and long-term consequences of these changes are apparent. The Canadian Bar Association testified before parliament that the new law would "result in a significant increase in rates of incarceration and in lengths of sentences, and will place additional stresses on an already overburdened criminal justice system".
This testimony echoes evidence found in other circles, for example an article by Eric Schlosser in Atlantic Monthly in Sept. of '94 which pointed out that "in America today the number of people imprisoned for drug offenses is the same as the number imprisoned for all crimes twenty years ago".
The drugwar industry is booming. In some US States it's the #1 growth industry. Noam Chomsky said that "one effect of the so-called "drug war," which has very little to do with controlling drugs and a lot to do with controlling people, has been to create a huge explosion in the prison population". With the Canadian prison industry looking to privatize, one could easily imagine a world where the 3 million or so Cannabis Canadians end up as "McPrisoners" - working off their "community service" by flipping burgers for their corporate McJailers.
The method this privatized "Ministry of Love" scenario could well evolve without media ever having to lie. For example, the media didn't lie about the Holocaust - it was just back page news. (Please read the quote at the beginning of my article on page 20 of Cannabis Canada # 6, or better yet see the illustrated version on page 20 of Potshot #11 for evidence of this assertion).
Basically, the front cover of every newspaper in Canada should be screaming "Government plots to imprison 3 million Canadians for pot smoking - without justification" and the headlines say the opposite, if they say anything about the bill at all. The logical conclusion to the "drugfree society" ideology this government is pushing is a universal daily urine examination. That is big news, but in Canada it's hidden in the back pages of the Globe and Mail once - on Sept. 24th, 1994!
The lack of respect for a doctor's ability to decide if the cannabis herb could somehow be of benefit to their patients will result in unnecessary pain and suffering for the many thousands of people who use pot medicinally (dry spells, jail, street impurities, paranoia etc. etc.) and will deny many more the opportunity to try a natural alternative to synthetic medicines - one that they could grow themselves to become more independent.
This bill will also result in unnecessary restrictions on industrial hemp. The timber industry pollutes our ecosystems with chlorine and dioxins for bleach, and destroys trees - the lungs of the earth. The cotton industry is hard on the soil and uses most of the pesticides in agriculture - some of which destroy the ozone layer. The fossil fuel industry contributes to global warming (please see Potshot #10, pages 50-64, especially page 51, 58 and 64).
There is much evidence to support the belief that industrial hemp could replace all of the above polluting industries - so long as (and this is vital to understand) there is not a "war on THC". THC is the plant's natural sunscreen and accidental pesticide. On top of burnt, pesticide strewn hemp crops, growing low THC hemp will hamper the selective breeding process - it is difficult to simultaneously breed for hi fiber or seed content, and at the same time breed for low THC. Low THC requirements creates a synthetic monopoly for low THC seed merchants (at present exclusively France) and insures a high price for hemp seed, as well as dependency instead of self sufficiency for Canadian hemp farmers (see Cannabis Canada #6, page 58).
I need not remind you of the seriousness that the current scientific community (the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example) is placing upon reducing the amount of Ozone depleting chemicals and fossil fuels released into our atmosphere. The opponents to the Cannabis community has regarded hemp as a "smoke screen" to the legalization debate. But who wants to get "high" in an environmental disaster area?
The most recent coverage in the Vancouver Province, May 19th, mentioned that "5 of the 13 committee members favored decriminalizing possession and the rest were sympathetic." No reason for favoring decrim. No subsequent coverage of the Senate "chickening out". No seeking of justification for expanded police powers. No mention of expanded police powers. No mention of the "medical coke and smack but no medical pot" clause. No mention of restrictions on industrial hemp. None of this in this article - or in any other.
I would like to see the newspapers tell the truth with the same space and energy they previously devoted to the misinformation. I would like to see the Vancouver Sun print a front page story on increased police powers, a lack of justification for the bill and the probable social, medical and environmental consequences of the bill. This front page story should contain quotes from the Canadian Bar and Medical Associations, both of which opposed the bill.
The Vancouver Province should do a feature on these issues, as they devoted at least 9 full page features by Kathy Tate on "the human costs of drug abuse".