NEWEST LIBERAL SET TO 'SMOKE OUT' SUPPORT FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

Former Marijuana Party Leader Takes His Mission Mainstream

Political defections to the Liberal party aren't unusual.

Disgruntled Conservatives, a member of the Bloc Quebecois, even the former
New Democratic premier of British Columbia have joined the governing party
in the last year alone.

But the announcement today to confirm the issuance of Liberal membership
No. 766001 is bound to turn heads.

The card belongs to Marc-Boris St-Maurice, the founder and former leader of
the Marijuana Party.

And as he heads to this week's national party convention, the country's
newest Grit won't be satisfied to sit quietly on the sidelines.

Mr. St-Maurice said yesterday he wants to help the Liberals become the
party that completely legalizes marijuana and he believes there is already
substantial support for such legislation among party members.

"There is a lot of support for this issue in the Liberal party," Mr.
St-Maurice said from his Montreal home. "They may be silent supporters, but
I know for a fact that it's very strong support and I will try and --
without trying to make any puns -- smoke them out, identify them and work
to try and come together and make (new legislation) work."

In the last eight years, Mr. St-Maurice, 36, has helped organize parties
dedicated to reforming marijuana laws. He helped create the Bloc Pot and
assembled a slate of 24 candidates to run in the 1998 Quebec provincial
election. The new party drew only a fraction of one per cent of the popular
vote.

In 2000, Mr. St-Maurice founded the national Marijuana Party. He ran
against former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day in a B.C. byelection,
then against Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe in that fall's federal
election, taking four per cent of the vote in the Bloc leader's Montreal
riding, where Mr. St-Maurice also lives.

Two years later, Mr. St-Maurice, who has been arrested seven times for
possessing small amounts of marijuana, appeared before committees of the
House of Commons and the Senate, calling for the drug's legalization.

Then in last year's June election, he took on Prime Minister Paul Martin in
Mr. Martin's Montreal-area riding of LaSalle-Emard.

Mr. Martin received 23,258 votes. Mr. St-Maurice received 324 and after
reflecting, he said, as any leader does in the wake of an electoral
setback, he decided to alter his strategy.

"I came to the conclusion that it would be a good move to take this fight
to the next level," Mr. St-Maurice said, "and that to get marijuana
legalized, it would have to be done by one of the mainstream parties. Right
now, the Liberals certainly are the only ones that seem to have some form
of record in regards to marijuana."

The government's bill C-17 that would decriminalize possession and
production of small amounts of marijuana, making such offences punishable
with fines, is currently before the Commons' justice committee.

But Mr. St-Maurice doesn't think the legislation goes far enough.

"People have the wrong notion that decriminalizing is actually some form of
legalization," he said. "I think we should look at less punitive approaches
for simple possession."