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Canadians for Safe Access presents:
Green Truth - the Green Tide Shadow Summit 2004
Voices of Reason - Exploring Alternatives to the Drug War
Thursday March 4 2004 12:00 noon
Sutton Place Hotel London Conference Room
Next year's conference: Details to be announced

In response to our Nation's rapidly escalating and desperate situation of prohibition-related violence and suffering, as well as recent dishonest and sensational anti-cannabis lobbying by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police and Ontario Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services (among others), their self-contradictory Green Tide Report, and their plans for a blatantly one-sided 'marijuana grow operation eradication summit,’ Canadians for Safe Access hosted a Green Tide Shadow Summit in Toronto on March 4. We intend to build upon this event with an annual Drug Policy Conference until the evils of prohibition end with repealment of our disastrous drug laws and the establishment of sensible regulations. The campaign of misinformation and terror, supported blindly by too many of Canada's news and information sources, must come to an end.

Our Summits address many real and pressing issues surrounding cannabis gardening and the misguided policies too many of our public servants follow and advocate. We respectfully suggest that the Chiefs are promoting a very biased and socially destructive position and that Canadian drug policy should be based on science and compassion, not fear and misinformation.

We wholeheartedly support Canadian police forces and are not necessarily advocating any reduction in police funding. However, there are logical and effective solutions to the problems at issue and OACP’s recommended changes including penalty increases and mandatory minimum prison sentences would obviously be steps in the wrong direction. Ironically the reports and findings of the OACP actually clearly highlight the need for serious modernization of our drug laws.

While there are dangers and serious societal concerns regarding marijuana growing, those dangers result directly from a failed policy of cannabis prohibition that serves to criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens and to entrench the black market control of this benign herb. A rational solution does not involve encouraging the perpetuation and fortification of policies that have repeatedly been proven to be counter-productive.

Canada must avoid further emulating those most damaging of American drug-war policies. We must learn from our experiences and the mistakes of others. The enormous amount of money and effort our society spends on the enforcement of harmful prohibitionist policies could easily be put to much better use, such as tackling predatory and violent crime.

The OACP/MCSCS Green Tide Summit was not a balanced approach to this problem: the so-called "community stakeholders" included banks, real estate firms, utility companies, and insurance companies apparently impacted by grow ops. CSA's Green Truth Summits will involve similar “stakeholders”, but will also involve a much broader and more comprehensive approach, including knowledgeable individuals such as medical cannabis user representatives and drug policy reformers in order to address these same issues and to propose reasonable solutions.

Our conferences will consist of presentations from Summit attendees with widely varying perspectives on the issues at hand, and open question and discussion periods based upon these presentations. Our findings will be made available to participants and the public through websites like this one, a compiled report, and press interaction. Participants in the 2004 Summit included representatives from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc), Educators for Sensible Drug Policy (www.efsdp.org), the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy (www.cfdp.ca), the New Democratic Party of Canada (www.ndp.ca), Invention Development Centre (www.patentregistration.ca), our Nation's Compassion Societies (www.cannabiscoalition.ca), among others.

For further information please contact:
Dominic S. Cramer E-mail
Regional Coordinator, Canadians for Safe Access
Founder and Director, Toronto Hemp Company (THC)
Co-Founder and Director, Toronto Compassion Centre (TCC)