ACTIVIST PUSHES MARIJUANA AS KEY TO HIGHWAY SAFETY

VANCOUVER - A stoned driver is a safer driver, B.C.'s leading
marijuana advocate says.

"Cannabis will likely improve your driving," Marc Emery, president of
the B.C. Marijuana Party, said Tuesday. "Marijuana doesn't impair you
in driving.

"People don't speed on pot. People go slower, they're more cautious.
They're not in a rush to get to where they're going."

On Monday, the federal government reintroduced legislation to
decriminalize pot possession for personal use, and re-tabled a bill to
give police the power to make drivers submit to drug testing.

Emery argued that his experience in the marijuana culture shows
driving while high is safe.

"I've smoked every day of my life and I've driven. I've never had an
accident in 26 years of driving," he said.

"I've been around pot people all my life and I don't know anybody
who's had an accident while they've been stoned."

His logic doesn't fly with Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

"The guy doesn't know what he's talking about," said MADD Canada CEO
Andrew Murie.

"(He's) using that old '70s thing, 'Oh, man, you know, I'm so
relaxed.' But you know, if you're so relaxed, and a life-and-death
situation appears in front of you, you can't react to that.

"Who sanctioned mellow drivers as the best drivers? We want people
alert, in full use of their faculties."

Vancouver RCMP forensic toxicologist Rick Ulrich said scientific
studies have shown marijuana, which has an active ingredient called
THC, is "the number-two drug behind alcohol in fatal accidents."

His own experience backs that up, Ulrich said.

"I've been involved in testing blood for THC for at least 18 years
and, yes, I've found it in numerous cases being present in the blood
in both fatal and impaired-driving cases.

"It's a different type of impairment than alcohol, but just as
deadly."

Federal Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan Tuesday defended the
government's move toward decriminalization.

But she added: "The message, whether it's from me, whether it's from
the minister of justice, the minister of health, is that marijuana
continues to be illegal in this country, and you're pretty stupid, in
most cases, if you smoke it."

On Aug. 31, a teen driver was convicted of dangerous driving in a
Langley, B.C., crash that killed two 16-year-olds, but he was found
not guilty of being impaired by marijuana. Judge W. G. MacDonald noted
that "the current state of the law makes it very difficult to
prosecute anyone for the offence of impairment by marijuana."

Under the new legislation, police with reasonable grounds to suspect a
driver has been smoking pot would be able to demand that the motorist
provide a blood, urine or saliva test, and refusal could result in a
criminal charge.

Test results, along with results of roadside sobriety tests and
officer observations of impairment indicators such as red eyes and the
reek of marijuana, would become evidence for prosecution, Ulrich said.

The new legislation would impose a $150 pot-possession fine for adults
and $100 for minors holding 15 grams or less -- enough to roll about
30 joints.

Anybody caught with more than 15 grams would still face jail time --
with a possible six months in prison -- and a maximum fine of $1,000.