LEGAL MARIJUANA LOOMS IN CANADA

Some U.S. Anti-Drug Activists Fear Policy Changes Will Make It Easier To
Get Drugs Here.

TORONTO - The Friendly Stranger used to be up a narrow stairway in a back
room, a crowded little shop offering water pipes, T-shirts and other
products of the cannabis, or marijuana, culture.

Now proprietor Robin Ellins has a prominent storefront on busy Queen Street
and plenty of room to display everything from hempseed oil and chips to a
full line of hemp clothing and elaborate smoking accessories.

The transformation from hidden emporium to thriving commercial venture is
part of Canada's slow but clear shift toward decriminalizing marijuana.

Justice Minister Anne McLellan says the issue should be studied, and a new
Parliament committee on drug matters will look at decriminalization.
Conservative Party leader Joe Clark is urging the elimination of criminal
penalties for possessing a small amount of pot.

"It's unjust to see someone, because of one decision one night in their
youth, carry the stigma - to be barred from studying medicine, law,
architecture or other fields where a criminal record could present an
obstacle," Clark said last week.

The government has proposed expanding medicinal use of marijuana, and the
Canadian Medical Association Journal recently supported full
decriminalization. Canada's Supreme Court will consider a case this year
that contends criminal charges for the personal use of marijuana violating
constitutional rights.

Making possession and use of small amounts of marijuana a civil offense,
akin to a traffic fine, instead of a criminal violation would move Canadian
policy closer to attitudes in The Netherlands and away from the United
States, its neighbor and biggest trade partner.

That worries U.S. anti-drug activists like Robert Maginnis of the Family
Research Council. "It will have a residual effect in this country of
depressing prices and making marijuana more available," he said.

He also knows a shift by Canada would boost the arguments of American
advocates for easing U.S. drug laws. "We find our allies are piling up on
us and making it more difficult" to fight drug use, Maginnis said.

Joseph Califano, president of the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University, is skeptical about that.

Califano, a former U.S. secretary of health and human services, said
increasing medical evidence on the harm caused by marijuana makes it
unlikely a change in Canadian law will affect U.S. policy. "I don't think
it means much," he said.

Canada already has a legal industry for hemp - cannabis cultivated with
very low amounts of the chemical that produces the high sought by marijuana
smokers - while the U.S. federal government prohibits hemp production.

In April, Canadian Health Minister Allan Rock proposed expanding the
medicinal use of marijuana beyond cancer sufferers now allowed to take the
drug to people with AIDS and other terminal illnesses, severe arthritis,
multiple sclerosis, spinal injuries and epilepsy. By contrast, the U.S.
Supreme Court recently upheld a federal ban on medical marijuana.

Some U.S. states allow hemp production and medical use of marijuana,
despite the federal bans, noted Bill Zimmerman, executive director of the
Campaign for New Drug Policies in California.

Arrest statistics show the disparity in the two nation's approaches.

Richard Garlick of the Canadian Center on Substance Abuse said about 25,000
people were arrested in Canada for simple possession of marijuana in 1999.

The U.S. figure for that year under the "zero tolerance" policy of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration was 24 times higher, exceeding 600,000,
says the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in
Washington. The U.S. population is about eight times that of Canada's.

"Thank God I'm in Canada," said Ellins, a long-haired entrepreneur who
gives his age as thirtysomething. "I just can't believe what's going on
down there. ... That's a war against people."

Believing decriminalization was inevitable in socially liberal Canada, he
moved his store to a larger, more public setting last year. It's named for
the "friendly stranger" cited in 1930s anti-marijuana propaganda as the
supplier of "reefer madness."

Police leave him alone, because the store avoids anything considered drug
paraphernalia, he said.

"Before it was too compact and tucked away," Ellins said. "There's
definitely been an increase in business. We're more accessible. We're more
in demand."