Today marks the last day of criminalization of simple possession of marijuana in Canada – a milestone receiving a lot more publicity then when cannabis was first criminalized in this country 95½ years ago in May 1923. In fact, it was a complete non-story at the time, meriting no particular press coverage and only two sentences spoken in Parliament, although the drug wasn’t identified by name in the sentence spoken in the House of Commons, whereas it was in the sentence spoken in the Senate. And that was pretty much it, eh, until midnight rolls around in Newfoundland and Labrador.
On April 23, 1923, Liberal Henri Sévérin Béland, minister of soldiers’ civil re-establishment and minister presiding over the department of health, speaking to the Narcotic Drugs Act Amendment Bill, said the bill was a consolidation of other legislation that had been passed over the previous few years, with some changes.
At the time, the only drugs on the schedule were opium, morphine, cocaine and eucaine (a local anesthetic first introduced as a substitute for cocaine).
The new bill added three drugs to the proscribed list: heroin, codeine and “cannabis indica (Indian hemp) or hasheesh.” But Béland simply told MPs in the House of Commons, “There is a new drug in the schedule. Bill reported, read the third time and passed.”
Science played no meaningful part of the decision, such as it was, to outlaw marijuana in Canada in 1923, and most Canadians had not even heard of the drug, much less used it.
Béland, a medical doctor, graduated from the medical program at the Université Laval in Quebec City in 1893. He was acclaimed as the Liberal MP for the federal riding of Beauce, south of Quebec City, in a byelection on Jan. 7, 1902.
Shortly before the start of the First World War in 1914, according to the Dictionary of Canadian biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, published by University of Toronto Press and Les Presses de l’Université Laval, Béland was travelling in Europe with his second wife, Adolphine Cogels, whom he had just married. When Germany invaded Belgium the couple hastily went to Kapellen, near Antwerp, where Adolphine’s family owned Starrenhof Castle. Béland offered his services to King Albert I, and in August 1914 he began to treat the wounded at the Sainte-Élisabeth hospital.
On June 3, 1915, Béland was arrested and then detained at the Grand Hôtel in Antwerp. Three days later he would be on a train to Berlin bound for the Stadtvogtei prison, from which he would not be freed until May 9, 1918. His wife died at Kapellen during his imprisonment.
After passing the House of Commons in April 1923, the Narcotic Drugs Act Amendment Bill was sent up to the Senate, where the following month, Raoul Dandurand, a Quebec senator for the De Lorimier Senate division, made up of the counties of St. John and Napierville; St. Jean Chrysostôme and Russeltown in the County of Chateauguay; and Hemmingford in the County of Huntingdon, and Liberal Leader of the Government in the Senate, reported on May 3, 1923, “There is only one addition to the schedule: Cannabis Indica (Indian Hemp) or hasheesh.”
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Hi John:
Perfect timing with this informative piece. I’m pretty certain that prior to sharing this, you were the only person in Thompson with this knowledge.
Love Jeanette xoxoxo ________________________________
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