Page 16 - Magazine Spring 2019

4
ECONOMY AND FINANCE
The Racial Origins of FCriminalization of
ew Canadians opium-based drug called laudanum, are aware of which was taken by them to calm their how cannabis nerves.
came to be
BY: JOHN SPINA
Since then, between 1961 and 1977 the share of convictions involving opiates declined from 98.3% to 1.3%, while convictions for cannabis increased,
Cannabis
criminalized The issue came to the fore publicly affecting mostly white, college-aged
in Canada when Emily Murphy, also known as males, who were imprisoned and or of the racial basis for that Janey Cannuck, wrote a series of ended up with criminal records for as criminalization. articles for McLean’s magazine, which little as simple possession of a single
were later compiled into a book called joint. Nearly 50,000 cases of possession The Opium and Narcotic Drug Act The Black Candle, that rallied public of cannabis were recorded in 2015 of 1929 was passed by Parliament sentiment against what was essentially alone; more than 50% of all criminal
as the result of a report by William private drug use. To do so, she linked drug cases. Mackenzie King,, who was the Deputy such use to a single community that
Minister of Labour at that time, and had investigated the “wide-spread’ use of Opinium in Vancouver. The bill was passed by Parliament with no debate. His findings were that the use of drugs in general, were inconsistent with the” principles of morality which ought to govern the conduct of a Christian Nation”. He insisted on legislation that would criminally prohibit the use, manufacture, importation or sale of opium except for “medicinal purposes”.
The tremendous anti-Chinese sentiment in British Columbia and other parts of Canada made it easy to attribute the use of opium to only persons of Chinese origin and disregard the fact that many white, female Canadians had become addicted an
was already widely looked down upon by many Canadians, the Chinese, and created the mythology of the crazed drug addict who would be the downfall of society. She expanded the list beyond persons of Chinese origins to include Jews and Blacks and added cannabis to the list of drugs to be prohibited.
Despite the findings of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1894, which concluded that “for all practical purposes it may be laid down that there is little or no connection between the use of hemp drugs and crime”, cannabis was added to the list of prohibited drugs with opium, morphine and cocaine. The first reported seizure of cannabis did not occur until 1937.
In 1970 the LeDain Commission stated, “There can be no doubt that Canada’s drug laws were for a long time primarily associated in the minds of legislators and the public with general attitudes and policy towards persons of Asiatic origin”. Those attitudes persist today as the people who find themselves in the justice system in connection with drugs are mostly poor, marginalized, recent immigrants and mostly people of colour and Indigenous people.
*A precis of The First Lady of Reefer Madness - Melvyn Green Walrus Magazine
22 December 2016
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