POLL WEEDS OUT A MAJORITY OF POT-SMOKING CANADIANS

OTTAWA - Canadians are smoking pot more than ever and the majority
want police and government to let them indulge in peace.

A new poll for the advocacy group NORML Canada shows, for the first
time, more than half of Canadians effectively support legalization,
with 57 per cent reporting people should be "left alone" if they are
caught with small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

An advance copy of the survey was given to CanWest News Service on
Wednesday, the same day the federal government released a study of
13,000 Canadians showing marijuana use has doubled in the last decade.

Fourteen per cent of those surveyed for the federal study said they
smoked pot in the last year, up from 7.4 per cent in 1994. The study
also revealed that almost 30 per cent of 15- to 17-year-olds and 47
per cent of 18- and 19-year-olds had used marijuana in the last year.

"This is really a rude awakening for the government," said Jody
Pressman, executive director of the advocacy group NORML Canada.
"Government is going in the wrong direction if it thinks
decriminalization is a step forward," said Pressman, whose
pro-marijuana group commissioned the poll.

The survey also reveals only eight per cent support criminalizing
marijuana if it leads to jail time. Another 32 per cent believe pot
possession should be punished by fines rather than criminal records, a
proposed middle ground in a federal bill winding its way through Parliament.

NORML wants Ottawa to scrap its controversial decriminalization bill,
end the prohibition on marijuana and regulate the industry.

"It's easier to get marijuana on a schoolground today than it is to
get alcohol or cigarettes because we don't apply the same regulatory
measures to marijuana to keep it away from young people," said Pressman.

The telephone survey of 1,000 adults was conducted by SES Research of
Ottawa from Oct. 26 to Nov. 1.

The results are considered accurate within 3.1 per cent, 19 times in
20.

The support for legalization appears to have spiked since last fall,
when a Decima Research poll of 2,015 Canadians showed that only 40 per
cent opposed a national ban on pot smoking.

SES president Nikita Nanos attributed the hike to the government
"normalizing" marijuana use through its policy of allowing people to
smoke for medicinal purposes.

While the latest poll reveals only eight per cent support
criminalization if it means going to jail, it did not gauge opinion on
the far more likely scenario of people receiving a criminal record,
but escaping jail time.

The federal marijuana bill, which was revived last month after two
earlier attempts failed, proposes to eliminate criminal records,
replacing them with fines of $100 or more for people caught with less
than 15 grams, the equivalent of about 15 cigarettes.

The survey also found just over half of Canadians support government
regulation of the pot industry and 37 per cent are against it, while
27 per cent were uncertain.

A Senate report two years ago also called on the government to end its
marijuana prohibition and implement a system to regulate its
production, distribution and consumption.

Legalizing and regulating the industry would bring in more than $2
billion a year in extra government tax revenue, the Fraser Institute,
an economic think-tank, estimated in a recent report.