MarijuanaNews.com : The Racist Origins Of Canada’s Marijuana Prohibition Reported In the National Post.

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Posted April 18, 2000
(MarijuanaNews note: I first read about this in an article by Dana
Larsen in Cannabis Canada – now Cannabis
Culture magazine.

This is interesting, but it is also very that it is being reported in the
National Post after they have called for ending marijuana prohibition.)

April 15, 2000
From the National Post
letters@nationalpost.com
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary.asp?s2letters
http://www.nationalpost.com/
http://forums.canada.com/~nationalpost
by Harry Bruce

THE REAL JANEY CANUCK

The Anti-Marijuana Writings Of An Edmonton Woman In The 1920s Were So Influential That
Many Of Her Opinions Helped Shape Legislation That Lasted Decades

Amazingly, as Donna Laframboise recently reported on these pages,
the National Post, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, The Economist and a whole
bunch of cops, coroners, lawyers, health-care workers, celebrities and assorted
dignitaries believe governments hurl billions of taxpayers’ dollars into a war on drugs
that’s utterly futile.
See
Two Conservative Papers Endorse Legalization Of
Marijuana.

and links

Most of the criminal charges involve marijuana, so harmless by comparison to booze and
cigarettes that the war looks spectacularly stupid, and many of those who revile the
campaign urge the legalization of pot.
See
Great London Times Column and News From
New Zealand Compare Marijuana and Alcohol

But to whom does Canada owe its antiquated drug laws? One of their
earliest and most influential promoters was an Edmonton woman who in 1920 wrote exposes
for Maclean’s about the illicit drug trade. She called herself Janey Canuck, and it was
good old Janey who first warned Canadians about “marahuana.” Seven years later,
Canada outlawed its use.

In a broader context, researchers for the LeDain Commission on the Non-Medical Use of
Drugs reported in 1973, “Her writings were extremely influential in shaping Canadian
drug laws,” and many of her “original proposals are still reflected in our
narcotics legislation.”
See

HREF=”http://marijuananews.com/marijuananews/cowan/head_of_1971_canadian_commission.htm”>Head
of 1971 Canadian Commission Recommending Decriminalization of Marijuana: “Stands By
Report”

Janey urged stiffer jail sentences for drug offenders, healthy doses of the lash, and if
they were aliens, instant deportation. She was not a nice person. According to the
commission’s team, her writing was sensationalist, fable-ridden and exploitative of
“popular racial bias.” Yes indeed. “She created a series of women-seducing
villains, primarily non-white and non-Christian, who threatened the Anglo-Saxon way of
life.”

While explaining the motive behind the drug trade, Janey declared, “It is claimed,
but with what truth we cannot say, that there is a well-defined propaganda among the
aliens of color to bring about the degeneration of the white race.” Another thing she
apparently could not say was who made the claim.

On the same theme, she then summarized the opinion of “Major Crehan of British
Columbia” that since “the traffic always comes with the Oriental, one would be
justified in assuming that it was their desire to injure the bright-browed races of the
world. …Some of the Negroes coming into Canada - — and they are no fiddle-faddle
fellows either — have similar ideas, and one of their greatest writers has boasted how
ultimately they will control the white men.” And who was that great black writer?
Janey wasn’t telling.

She refers to “the lowest classes of yellow and black men,” and “this
sallow, unsmiling Oriental.” After describing “a certain blackamoor,” a
railroad porter who was not only a drug offender but a possessor of “the most obscene
literature ever printed,” Janey wrote, “One can hardly imagine anything more
dangerous than a filthy-minded drug addict in charge of a coach of sleeping people,
whatever his color may be.”

Even when complimenting one race, Janey felt compelled to trash another:

“The Chinese are as a rule friendly people and have a fine sense of humor that puts
them on an easy footing with our folk, as compared with the Hindu and others we might
mention. …Ah Duck, or whatever we choose to call him,” was at least “patient,
polite and persevering.”
See

HREF=”http://marijuananews.com/marijuananews/cowan/asian_drug_cartels_are_targeting.htm”>”The
Asian drug cartels are targeting Washington state.”
Last Week It Was The Motorcycle Gangs. Now It Is The Yellow Peril.
Racist Anti-Canadian Prohibitionist Propaganda Runs In DEAland Papers

Janey’s articles were so popular among Canada’s Christian whites, with their fears of the
Yellow Peril and the dangers that lurked among dark-skinned people, that in 1922, the
stories appeared between hard covers as The Black Candle. It was in Back Pages, a fine
little used-book store in downtown Halifax, that I stumbled upon this little-known CanLit
gem.

My, she was proud of that book, so proud she nominated herself for a 1923 Nobel Prize.
Frederick Banting and J.J.R. McLeod shared a Nobel that year for the discovery of insulin,
but alas for Janey, the award for literature went to some poet named William Butler Yeats.
At least he belonged to a “bright-browed” race, even if he was an Irishman.

Who was the charming Miss Canuck? None other than Mrs. Emily Murphy, the first woman judge
in the British Empire, and one of the “the famous five.”

In 1929, these women won a judgment from the British Privy Council that declared women
were indeed persons under the British North America Act, and therefore entitled to sit in
the Senate. They had proved the truth of Emily’s credo: “The world loves a peaceful
man, but gives way to a strenuous kicker.”

So she’s huge in the heroine biz. Edmonton has its Emily Murphy Road, and its Emily Murphy
Park, with its Emily Murphy statue. Calgary recently unveiled a statue of the famous five,
which of course included Emily. From a similar statue, she’ll soon glare in all her glory
on Parliament Hill.

Kate Nelligan portrays her in one of those sucky Canadian Heritage fillers on television.
Greg Gatenby, director of Toronto’s Harbourfront Reading Series, wants a new street near
his home named after her.

To be fair to Janey, The Black Candle not only urged those corrective lashings — 10 on
the way into the slammer, and just for good measure, 10 more on the way out — but also
recommended, unsuccessfully, the establishment of treatment centres for drug addicts.
Still, if pot-smokers (not to mention Chinese Canadians) were as fanatical as certain
Quebec separatists, they’d be planting bombs under those bronze Emilies. But they’re not.

Compared to Janey, they’re a gentle crowd.