POT LAW NO THREAT TO U.S.

"Memo to Canadian customs and immigration authorities: As the states
of Maine, New York, Michigan and Alaska have marijuana laws that are
considerably more lenient than Canada's, Canadian border personnel
should take stern measures to insure that vehicles from those states
are not smuggling illegal substances into Canada. If such searches
cause border tie-ups and hamper trade: too bad."

As far as we know, no one at Canada Customs or RCMP headquarters has
sent a memo like that to the unarmed men and women who staff our
border posts. But if Canada were to follow Paul Cellucci's logic, by
now someone should have.

In a meeting with the National Post's editorial board this week, the
U.S. ambassador painted a generally positive picture of current
relations between our two countries, but expressed serious misgivings
about Ottawa's plan to make the possession of small amounts of
marijuana a non-criminal offence, punishable by a fine rather than
jail time. That, he warned, would put U.S. customs officers on high
alert for smugglers, further snarling lineups at the border and
interfering with trade. "Why," he asked plaintively, "when we're
trying to take pressure off the border, would Canada pass a law
putting pressure on the border?"

If he's really looking for an answer, maybe he should ask the members
of New York's state legislature. They've decreed that possessing as
much as eight ounces of marijuana - i.e. 226 grams - is only a
misdemeanour, rather than a felony. And in Alaska - the state with the
longest border with Canada - residents can possess up to a pound of
pot, or more than 450 grams, without facing criminal charges.

Given Ottawa's modest decriminalization proposal sets the upper limit
at 15 grams, maybe the wrong ambassador is doing the complaining.
Maybe it's Canada that needs protection from decadent border states.
According to the Washington-based National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws, 12 states have already decriminalized marijuana,
and 100 million Americans - fully a third of the U.S. population -
already live under drug laws that make Canada's proposed changes look
positively puritan.

In fact, the point of Canada's decriminalization project is not to
create a haven for pot puffers, and far less to encourage cultivation
and trafficking - the proposed changes would double the maximum
penalty for growing marijuana from seven to 14 years. Rather, the
changes are designed to protect the growing number of ordinary and
otherwise law-abiding Canadians who smoke marijuana occasionally from
being stigmatized with a criminal record that could hamper their
careers and travel mobility. This is no small matter. In 2003, 27,000
people, a quarter of them under 25 were hit with 50,246 charges of
cannabis possession - double the number of charges just 10 years ago.
If only half of them end up convicted, that's an awful lot of lives to
stunt for a fairly innocuous offence.

Canada's objectives are perfectly legitimate, and if Cellucci wants to
harmonize Canadian and U.S. drug laws, maybe he should talk to New
York and Alaska about toughening theirs up.