LOOPHOLES IN DRUG LAWS

There has been news of substance from around the world lately.

In London, the substance was marijuana, suddenly near-legal. In Japan
it was psilocybin. In Canada, marijuana again.

As a six-month window opened in the south London neighborhood of
Brixton, aficionados were toking it to the limit, delighted that cops
will be looking the other way for the time being. While marijuana
still will be confiscated, police plan to focus their resources on
the larger problems of crack cocaine and heroin. According to police
statistics, prosecuting a possession case costs $14,000--of which $14
is recouped under a typical fine levied by a magistrate.

Real-estate broker Barry Klieff said the area's new aura would bring
"star appeal," but some residents worried that curb appeal was more
like it.

"How many of our black people are doctors, how many are lawyers?"
asked a dispirited Brendan Wright, 53. "Yet the first thing our
children want to do is stand on that street corner and buy those
drugs, and now you want to tell them it's OK."

For their part, government officials haven't been saying much about
the experiment, but the implication is that marijuana use may be
decriminalized throughout Britain if all goes well in Brixton.

Marijuana possession still brings a 5-year jail sentence in Japan,
but a loophole in drug laws there opens the way for open sales of
magic mushrooms that elsewhere are considered Class A narcotics.

Authorities, it seems, have no way of distinguishing between culinary
and hallucinogenic mushrooms, so they simply ignore the matter.

"The law says if you know it's a narcotic and eat it, then you have
broken the law. But if you think it's only a mushroom and eat it,
man, that's fine," said a mushroom seller named Hiro.

Along with this fungal freedom, however, has come a string of
disturbing results, including at least two deaths and a scandalous
episode involving a popular actor who went berserk on a Tokyo street.
Health officials and scientists are studying the matter, and the
mushroom trade's days may be numbered.

Canada, meanwhile, has chosen simply to expand legal use of medical
marijuana by terminally ill patients or people with debilitating
illnesses.

"This compassionate measure will improve the quality of life of sick
Canadians, particularly those who are terminally ill," said Health
Minister Allan Rock.

With that in mind, should it come to pass that you are allowed to
smoke marijuana, may you never need to.