As legalization looms, calls grow for pot amnesty

Criminal records that are hard to erase disproportionately affect lives, careers of Black people

Thestar.com
July 9, 2017
By Andrew Bailey

More than 27,000 people in Toronto were arrested for possessing marijuana from 2003 to 2013, a Star analysis reveals. Nearly one-quarter of them were aged 12 to 18.

The data obtained by the Star also indicates that possession arrests and charges rose where the “carding” of residents by police was widespread. And just as this practice of stopping, questioning and doc- umenting affected Black people disproportionately, so did marijuana charges.

About one in five people arrested were released unconditionally with no charges going to court, but their names and noted offences remain in a police database.

All of the offences — 40,634 for possession and possession for the purpose of trafficking, over the decade covered by the data — are documented in the Toronto Police Service arrest and charge database, regardless of whether a charge was tested in court. Of those charges, 34 per cent of them were against Black people. During that period, Toronto’s Black population was around 8 per cent.

Police note that in about half of the cases, an arrested individual was facing another criminal charge or charges, not related to marijuana possession. Outcomes of court cases are not part of the data released to the Star in a freedom-ofinformation request.

This rare, race-based glimpse at those most affected by marijuana arrests and charges confirms anecdotal evidence of systemic bias, and highlights a challenge faced by the federal Liberal government.

As it moves to legalize marijuana by July 2018, what should it do for citizens with possession records?

Pardons are an expensive and bureaucratic process, so some have suggested a widespread amnesty.

Pot is the most popular of Canada’s illicit drugs.

According to the 2015 Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, about one in 10 Canadians aged 15 and older reported marijuana use in 2013. One-third of Canadians reported using it at some point in their lives.

The police-reported crime rate peaked in 1991 and had been declining ever since. Not so the police-reported rate of drug-related offences. They grew by 52 per cent from 1991 to 2013, according to a Statistics Canada report.

There were 109,000 police-reported drug offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in 2013 alone, with two-thirds involving cannabis. In fact, half of all the offences were for possession of pot. Cocaine accounted for the next largest group of offences at 16 per cent.

About one in 20 incidents reported by police on 2013 was primarily drugrelated, according to the Statscan survey.

Affected most by police-reported drug offences are young people, ages 18-24, charged at a rate of 1,176 per 100,000 people in that category, followed by those 12-17 at a rate of 741 per 100,000.

In roughly half of completed cases in youth and adult courts involving marijuana, the marijuana charge was the only charge. Marijuana cases across the country were “more commonly stayed or withdrawn (55 per cent) than cases involving other types of drugs (38 per cent),” notes the Statistics Canada report.

While possession charges laid by Toronto police gradually increased under Bill Blair’s tenure as chief, in 2013, the service ranked low in laying of drug offences, per capita, compared to other large urban areas.

Across Canada in 2013, 41 per cent of marijuana-related offences were “cleared” — or disposed of — before reaching court, compared to 17 per cent for other drug offences.

Police have been using discretion to keep a lot of marijuana cases out of the courts, but police databases that track arrests have, in many cases, indeterminate shelf lives.

“Once you’re on the radar, you’re always on the radar,” says Daniel Brown, a Toronto criminal lawyer.

In Toronto, a first arrest for simple possession often results in an unconditional release or diversion, resulting in no criminal record, but the arrest remains in the system. A second arrest may not be treated as lightly and can affect employment and travel. Often, conditions are placed on the convicted, leading to administrative charges for breaching those conditions, which can include automatic jail time. Jim Rankin and Sandro Contenta.