The battle lines have long been drawn. Factions from either side of the political fence waging full-scale propaganda campaigns and stockpiling ammunition for the unavoidable clash.

At stake -- depending on which brand of rhetoric you subscribe to -- is an untapped bounty of tax dollars, a public health crisis-in-waiting, the sanctity of the world's longest unprotected border, the opportunity to purge a prime domain of organized crime, the welfare of the nation's youth, and the rights and freedoms of the Canadian citizen.

Just another day in the war on drugs.

But with the public dialogue raging over this country's marijuana laws, politicians can no longer afford to simply turn down the volume.

And with both sides of the debate now armed with serious science and legitimate advocacy, neither side can simply be discounted as drug-addled hippies, nor as the conformist "Reefer Madness" establishment.

* * *

There has never been any shortage of opinion when it comes to pot.

But now, with highly-placed politicians, top law enforcement officials, medical professionals and legal aces aligning themselves with pro-pot advocates -- unheard of a few decades ago -- and public opinion polls showing as much as two-thirds of the country pushing for reform, the diminishing anti-drug lobby finds itself in a precarious position when it comes to pot.

And now, the debate once again enters the political arena on a nationwide scale -- already primed as a major federal election issue with the Liberals set to clash with a Conservative government that has taken a hard line on pot, enacting mandatory minimum sentences, a frontline offensive on marijuana grow operations, and a national anti-drug strategy that brands pot as a scourge of today's youth.

"There's no doubt that the Conservatives are going to attack and attack the Liberals on their policy," says University of Ottawa law professor Eugene Oscapella, a renowned academic on drug policy who has been fighting for legal reform for nearly three decades.

"They're going to try to make political hay out of this, but it may backfire, because the Canadian public is much better-informed about the harms caused by prohibition. The big success in the reform movement has really been to counter the propaganda that's been proliferated for generations."

Critics would argue, however, that the pro-pot lobby is equally guilty of their own propaganda campaign.

"We have the highest population of young marijuana users in the western world, and Canadian kids think it makes you a better driver and it cures cancer. Well, wait just a minute," says Pamela McColl, an outspoken opponent of both tobacco and marijuana and a member of Smart Approaches to Marijuana Canada.

"Not only is it harmful to users and non-users, it increases dropout rates, has huge psychological downside in adult life, and the potential for addiction."

SAMC positions itself "in the middle of the rhetoric, between the 'reefer madness' hysteria and the propaganda put out by the pot lobby," says McColl.

"We understand that people don't want to see kids getting saddled with criminal records, but we also want to ensure that they're given all the information from the science of the day, and that they're warned about the potentially permanent harm to their brains from using marijuana at an early age.

With the pot industry verging on becoming big business, McColl says the lobby efforts are "motivated by politics and downright greed."

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The escalating debate places law enforcement in a delicate balance.

"We're caught between politics and the law," says Ottawa Police Association president Matt Skof.

"Obviously, we're already seeing marijuana prescribed by doctors, and this has become a social issue. Our own officers out there are very much caught in limbo, and we need direction from the public and from legislation.

"We've started our careers with this as a criminal offence, and now it's obviously going the route of decriminalization. We've always treated (marijuana) as the lower end of the drug offences, but we've seen so many difficult cases.

"We see the final results of somebody going down the worst path."

That's why police hesitate to come out with a ringing endorsement for legalization.

"It does cause damage, and we've seen it," says Skof. "We have addiction, major health issues, and we always see the bad cases, so it's hard for us to have that laissez-faire attitude around it."

Still, police don't want to come into conflict with the community, "and that's been the biggest problem for us -- if we're enforcing something that the community doesn't want enforced. Well, that has to come from legislation, and the community directs that."

In last year's summit of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Ottawa's top cop Charles Bordeleau endorsed the idea of making possession of small quantities of pot (less than 30 grams) a ticketable offence.

"It continues to send a message that marijuana is a drug, it is illegal, and it is harmful, and there are consequences to possessing that drug," Bordeleau maintained, while saying the current system "clogs up the court system, it's slow and it's very costly."

That fact has long been a pillar of the pro-pot lobby.

"With these mandatory minimum sentences, the court system would become so constipated it couldn't function if everybody pleaded not guilty -- and there's much more incentive to do that when you're facing a mandatory minimum sentence," says Oscapella.

Citing court costs, legal fees, policing and the expense of keeping inmates locked away, Oscapella sees no case for continuing down the current path.

"If we could devote our attention to truly harmful activity -- criminal activity that causes direct harm to other people -- then we may see the system function better."

Police and public officials tend to agree, even if they don't always say so in the public sphere.

Oscapella has crisscrossed the country, testifying before Senate committees and RCMP summits on the carnage caused by prohibition.

"Public attitudes have changed considerably in the past 25 years. When I started this, people were calling me insane and I had a very hostile reception," he says.

"Now, most people have come to the realization that the law, as it presently stands, is ineffective and in fact counter-productive. It actually creates harm. We're financing criminal organizations, financing terrorist groups and causing carnage in producer and transit countries all over the world.

"I've testified and had people come up to me and say, 'Officially I can't agree with you, but I agree with you.'

"Well, at a certain point you ask, how about having the cojones to stand up for this? Because what you're essentially saying is, 'For the purpose of paying my mortgage, I'm willing to have somebody thrown in jail.' "

Oscapella sees some merit in the idea of issuing tickets for possessing pot, but says decriminalization would still leave the current black market intact.

"You'll get a ticket for possessing it, but the production would remain illegal. So you'll still have all the profits associated with the black market and the problems associated with the black market. And when you prohibit these drugs, you create a fantastically lucrative black market for them. Let's be honest about it -- it's the prohibition of these drugs that turns a product that is very inexpensive to produce into something that's worth many times more than its weight in gold."

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That line of thinking seems to be gaining traction.

Just this week, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health released a scathing indictment of the current policy of cannabis control, with Dr. Jurgen Rehm saying the system -- at a cost of $1.2 billion each year for enforcement of cannabis laws alone -- "is failing to prevent or reduce the harms associated with cannabis use."

Based on an in-depth analysis of the health, social and legal implications of marijuana use, the CAMH concluded that "legalization combined with strict regulation... is the most effective means of reducing the harms associated with its use."

Far from classifying marijuana as a "benign substance," the CAMH cites concerns with "cognitive and psychomotor functioning, respiratory issues, cannabis dependence and mental illness," and recommends strict regulations, a government monopoly on sales, limits on availability, a pricing system that "discourages use of higher-harm products" and a total ban on marketing.

That model would place marijuana in a similar class as tobacco and alcohol, products which, as pro-pot activists have long argued, contain the same element of social ill while being regulated -- and heavily taxed -- by government.

"Fifty years ago, half the adult population smoked cigarettes. Now it's around 20%, and much less than that among youth," says Oscapella.

"Tobacco is a highly-addictive substance that is far more problematic than marijuana, and through taxation, public policy, restrictions on places of consumption, restrictions on advertising and through social engineering to demonize tobacco, we've hugely decreased the consumption."

For critics, the counter-argument is a simple one.

"We can prevent having a third addictive drug, and especially one that only about 8% of adults use, and between 30-50% of teens use," says McColl, saying the strategy comes straight from the old tobacco lobby.

"I mean, we've seen it for 60 years in the tobacco industry -- deny the science, discredit the scientists and then move the agenda forward as fast you can with as much money as possible. It's a fascinating repetition of history.

"People say prohibition doesn't work. Well, we have prohibition on drinking and driving, driving without seatbelts -- that's the basis of a civilized society. We have laws and penalties and rules that we all agree upon, and then we all get along and live together. To say that prohibition doesn't work is just ridiculous."

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Legalized marijuana opens up a whole new set of challenges on multiple fronts.

As a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded, legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco "offer a sobering perspective, accounting for the greatest burden of disease associated with drugs, not because they are more dangerous than illegal drugs but because their legal status allows for more widespread exposure."

While the pro-pot lobby saw the legalization of pot in Washington and Colorado this year as a sea change event, the early returns have not been what anyone predicted.

While business is booming, with people lining up at licensed dispensaries for the latest products, like THC-laced sodas, candies and chocolate bars -- which manufacturers insist are aimed solely for an adult market -- tax revenues have fallen far below expectations.

According to SAMC, Colorado voters expected a $40 million annual tax windfall from recreational pot sales, yet only $195,318 was collected in excise taxes during the first month, which projects to about $2.5 million annually.

The collected sales tax -- which was to fund the regulation of the industry, as well as youth education and prevention programs -- was also "distressingly low."

Meanwhile, the easy availability of potent pot is raising concerns among police, parents and educators, with a spike in emergency room visits and poison control calls from young children consuming enticing pot "edibles."

"We're seeing news bulletins coming out of Colorado showing an enormous drop in support after what they've seen in just a few short months," says McColl.

"The damage we're seeing is more kids showing up in emergency rooms, more collisions on the road. You're seeing the damage much faster."

That concern is echoed by police, with Skof saying that while officers would still enforce an impaired driving charge, "drug recognition is fairly new, whereas officers have testing equipment for alcohol. And if marijuana becomes more accessible, just as alcohol is accessible, then we're going to end up with issues around impaired driving."

McColl believes the pendulum will begin to swing back, as the potential for social harm trumps all.

"We're seeing, from everywhere in the world, a complete u-turn on this issue. And in Canada there's this belief that (legalization) is inevitable and that we're marching forward. I would challenge that belief."

Twitter: @OttSunHelmer