TOUGH-ON-CRIME MESSAGE GOLD AT THE BALLOT BOX

Here's what I learned from reading the government's new crime bill: It
is best to avoid a career as either a marijuana farmer or a politician.

The Conservatives are bringing in stiff new penalties for anyone
caught growing weed, which will increase our prison population without
doing anything to make us safer.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, who seems to be a very intelligent
fellow, likely knows that, but it's his job to go around saying the
opposite.

That can't be any fun at all, but he doesn't have much
choice.

Throughout the minority years, the Conservatives promised that they
would get tough on crime, using crime bills to cow their opponents
during games of parliamentary chicken.

Now that they have a majority, they must keep their promises and get
tough.

So on Tuesday, Nicholson introduced the Safe Streets and Communities
Act, combining measures from nine bills.

Many of the measures may provide some modest benefit, since some
horrible people will be kept off the streets. That will cost us a lot
of money - and it's not a magic crimekilling bullet since most of the
bad guys will get out some day - but there is logic behind it.

The measures aimed at marijuana growers, though, seem awfully stupid.
The government wants to lock up everyone caught growing six or more
pot plants for at least six months. The maximum penalty will be 14
years.

This is going to cost us all a lot of cash, but the government won't
say how much.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in 2008-09, each
federal cell cost taxpayers $162,376. Most people busted for running
grow ops now get off with a fine or house arrest, so we are going to
need more prisons.

Last year, police reported 18,256 cases of cannabis production or
trafficking. Drug offenders make up 21 per cent of federal offenders,
many of whom now serve their sentences under house arrest. After this
bill passes, a lot of small-time pot farmers will end up in the big
house.

Since many of the sentences will be less than two years, much of that
cost will be borne by the provinces.

All that might be worth it, if it were going to make our streets
safer, but it will not do that.

Grow ops pose a fire risk, they provide cash to criminal
organizations, and smoking marijuana is bad for you.

It would be nice to shut them all down, but anyone who thinks that is
possible has been smoking too much B.C. bud.

An ounce of pot fetches between $150 and $200, so there will be never
be a shortage of suppliers.

Nicholson is obviously no fool, so I'm sure he knows that. And he
knows that mandatory minimum sentences are bad policy, because he was
vice-chairman of the justice committee that reviewed criminal
sentencing in 1988. That committee concluded that mandatory minimum
sentences couldn't "be designed to deal with the complex variables" in
criminal cases.

Say a single mother grows a dozen pot plants in her backyard to make a
few extra bucks. Under the law as it stands, a judge could let her off
with a slap on the wrist. After this law passes, she's going to the
slammer for six months and her kids are going into custody no matter
what the judge thinks. That's the kind of discretion that judges are
supposed to exercise, Nicholson's committee pointed out.

"Moreover, there is some evidence that guidelines have had the
undesirable effect of contributing to rapidly increasing prison
populations in the United States," his report said.

No kidding. Every year, a million Americans are imprisoned on drug
charges, about a quarter of them for marijuana.

The number spiked after mandatory minimum sentences were introduced in
the 1980s. This huge, painful war on drugs has done nothing to reduce
the supply of street drugs, and U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill
for a huge prison population.

They are now tiring of paying. Cash-strapped state governments have
begun to release drug criminals from overcrowded prisons to save
money. Conservatives - including Newt Gingrich and Jeb Bush - have
formed an organization aimed at reducing the prison population.

In Canada, though, we are just getting started, and the tough-on-crime
message is gold at the ballot box, even though crime rates are moving
steadily downward.

According to demographer David Foot, author of Boom, Bust & Echo,
crime rates are falling because there are fewer people in the age
group that commits most crimes - late teens and early 20s. The crime
rate was highest when the baby boomers were wearing bell-bottoms and
listening to Jimi Hendrix.

Now that they're older, boomers feel vulnerable, and are more likely
to support "tough-on-crime" policies.

Since there are so many boomers, and they vote - unlike young people -
politicians design policies that appeal to them, whether those
policies are wise or not.

It's the kind of thing that could drive you to drink.