MARIJUANA USAGE HAS DOUBLED IN 10 YEARS

57% Support Legalization

OTTAWA - Canadians are smoking marijuana more than ever and the
majority want people left to use it in peace, new surveys released
yesterday suggest.

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

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

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

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

The survey also reveals only 8% support criminalizing marijuana if it
leads to jail time. Another 32% believe pot possession should be
punished by fines rather than criminal records, a middle ground that
is currently proposed in a federal bill winding its way through Parliament.

NORML wants the federal government to scrap its controversial
decriminalization bill and bring in an end to prohibition and begin
regulating 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," Ms. Pressman
said.

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 percentage points, 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%
opposed a state 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 that only 8% 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 that just over half of Canadians support
government regulation of the pot industry and 37% are against it,
while 27% 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.

The survey shows Canadians are softening on marijuana laws at a time
when police, the business community and the U.S. are stepping up their
opposition.

The study and the poll were released less than a week before George W.
Bush, the U.S. President, comes to Canada. Canada's position has been
an irritant to the White House and could emerge as a contentious issue
during the presidential visit.

Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador, reiterated American opposition
last week when he predicted liberalizing the law in Canada would lead
to increased checks at the already congested borders.

An influential business group, the Canadian Council of Chief
Executives, also jumped into the debate by saying that the marijuana
decriminalization will exacerbate the multibillion-dollar problem of
substance abuse in the workplace.

The poll also provides a breakdown of public opinion, showing that
Quebec residents, renters, and Canadians 18 to 29 and 40 to 59 are
most likely to support a "hands-off" approach.

Westerners were evenly divided on government intervention and Ontario
and Atlantic Canada hovered around the national average. In Quebec,
68% of respondents reported that people should be "left alone" to
smoke pot in peace.