Worthwhile Canadian Decisions
By 
The Supreme Court of Canada is making sense:
L was convicted of possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking. [Less than 10g worth — ed.] Because he had a recent prior conviction for a similar offence, he was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of one year of imprisonment, pursuant to s. 5(3)(a)(i)(D) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (“CDSA”). Section 5(3)(a)(i)(D) provides a minimum sentence of one year of imprisonment for trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking in a Schedule I or II drug, where the offender has been convicted of any drug offence (except possession) within the previous 10 years.
[…]
the mandatory minimum sentence provision covers a wide range of potential conduct. As a result, it catches not only the serious drug trafficking that is its proper aim, but conduct that is much less blameworthy. This renders it constitutionally vulnerable.
At one end of the range of conduct caught by the mandatory minimum sentence provision stands a professional drug dealer who engages in the business of dangerous drugs for profit, who is in possession of a large amount of drugs, and who has been convicted many times for similar offences. At the other end of the range stands the addict who is charged for sharing a small amount of drugs with a friend or spouse, and finds herself sentenced to a year in prison because of a single conviction for sharing marihuana in a social occasion nine years before. Most Canadians would be shocked to find that such a person could be sent to prison for one year.
[…]
Insofar as s. 5(3)(a)(i)(D) of the CDSA requires a one‑year mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment, it violates the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment in s. 12 of the Charter.
To move mouth of the border, here is how the great legal sage Antonin Scalia, joined by five colleagues, adjudicated a similar constitutional claim in a case in which someone convicted of possessing 672 grams of cocaine was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without possibility of parole:
Severe, mandatory penalties may be cruel, but they are not unusual in the constitutional sense, having been employed in various forms throughout our Nation’s history.
But I’m sure American residents feel much safer now! I would also assume that, 25 years later, the War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs has long been won.