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“Law Enforcement and Cannabis Grow Operations”
Eugene Oscapella, Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy
Eugene Oscapella, Barrister and Solicitor, Ottawa, Canada. Mr. Oscapella completed undergraduate studies in economics at the University of Toronto in 1974 and received his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Ottawa in 1977. He obtained his Master of Laws degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1979. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1980.
From 1980 to 81, Mr. Oscapella served as a commission counsel with the McDonald Commission of Inquiry into the RCMP. From 1982 to 85, he was Director of Legislation and Law Reform for the Canadian Bar Association. Since 1985, Mr. Oscapella has been an independent adviser to government and private sector interests on Canadian legislative and public policy issues.
Mr. Oscapella was associated with the Law Reform Commission of Canada over a 14 year period, and was the first chairman of that body's Drug Policy Group. Mr. Oscapella is a founding member (with 10 others) of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, an independent organization created to examine Canada’s drug laws and policies. For several years he sat on the policy committee of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. He lectures on drug policy issues in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa and has lectured and been published widely in Canada and abroad on drug policy issues.
The debate in official circles about how to deal with grow operations ignores the central issue – why the illegal market in cannabis is so profitable. That is, government officials often mention the huge profits that can be derived from grow operations. However, they almost inevitably fail to ask WHY grow operations are so profitable.
The answer is simple – prohibition. Prohibition, the use of the criminal law to prohibit the production of cannabis, creates a black market in cannabis. Prohibition drives up the price of cannabis and, as a result, the profits to be made by producing cannabis. The criminal law makes grow operations hugely more lucrative than they would otherwise be. This is a basic law of economics; prohibit something that people want, and a black market will arise. In the face of this basic law of economics, law enforcement is powerless. It cannot eliminate grow operations, and by relying on the criminal law society forfeits the ability to control grow operations through regulatory means.
Increasing law enforcement resources directed at grow operations may well serve to drive the production of cannabis into the hands of organized criminals by persuading more risk-averse small producers to leave the market. The gap in the market will be filled by more organized groups that are not afraid of law enforcement.
Efforts to suppress the production of cannabis through the criminal law have failed. Even the United States, home of some of the harshest drug laws in the world, and with perhaps the most powerful drug law enforcement apparatus in the world, has been unable to eradicate, or even significantly reduce, the production of cannabis within its own borders. The report of the International Narcotic Control Board for 2003, released on March 3, 2004, cites US government estimates that more than 10,000 tons of cannabis are produced in the US annually (Canada, by comparison, is estimated to produce about 800 tons annually).
In its 2002 report, Canada’s Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs recognized the futility of relying on the criminal law, since the criminal law itself is what makes the drug trade so profitable in the first place.
The only way to reduce the risks posed by currently illegal grow operations is, as the Senate committee recommended, to set up a legal, regulated trade in cannabis, coupled with intelligent social policies (age limits and honest education about drugs, among them) to address any problematic use of the drug. Governments must stop pretending that using the criminal law to deal with grow operations can form any part of an intelligent, humane way to address cannabis.