MILLIONS OF CANADIANS INHALE DESPITE POT LAWS

Canadians Will Consume Roughly 2,100 Kilograms Of Marijuana Today.

By the end of the year, three million of us, according to a recent
study by the Senate, will have smoked, eaten or otherwise inhaled
almost 770,000 kilograms of the stuff -- impressive numbers
considering that marijuana use is a federal crime.

It is also a crime to cultivate the weed. Yet, police and industry
insiders estimate about 215,000 growers across the country produce
more than 2.6 million kilograms of cannabis each year.

In British Columbia alone, the pot-growing industry is believed to
generate up to $6 billion in annual sales, making it one of the West
Coast's biggest industries after forestry and tourism.

With so many Canadians smoking and growing marijuana, questions are
being asked about why the federal government maintains its prohibition
of the drug, and how, if the prohibition is sound public policy,
police can ever be expected to properly enforce the law.

"Why doesn't the government stop dragging its feet and implement a
fully legal regulatory regime for marijuana for everybody?" says Jody
Pressman, a marijuana advocate in Ottawa.

Says Dana Larsen, editor of Vancouver-based Cannabis Culture magazine,
which sells 85,000 copies every month in Canada and the U.S., "Under a
fully legalized system people could grow marijuana commercially and
sell it in stores licensed by the government. It could be subject to
health controls, quality controls and taxes. It wouldn't have to be
more expensive than any other fruit or vegetable."

Such views are no longer the sole property of the political fringe.
Two years ago, the Senate's special committee on illegal drugs
interviewed 2,000 witnesses as part of the most exhaustive Canadian
study into marijuana in 30 years. The committee's 2002 report urged
Ottawa to end its 81-year-old prohibition by implementing a system to
regulate the production, distribution and consumption of marijuana --
the same as governments do with alcohol.

"If the aim of (existing) public policy is to diminish consumption and
supply of drugs, specifically cannabis, all signs indicate complete
failure," the report said. "Billions of dollars have been sunk into
enforcement without any great effect."

The Liberal government, however, is taking another route, choosing to
simply decriminalize small-time pot usage and to toughen the law
against commercial growers and dealers.

Bill C-10, introduced in the House of Commons last month, would make
the possession of up to 15 grams of pot and up to three marijuana
plants no more serious than driving over the speed limit, punishable
by tickets and fines of between $100-$500.

The bill also increases the fines and jail terms for people caught
trafficking or growing larger amounts of pot in an apparent bid to
deter organized crime groups, whose entry into the industry in recent
years has resulted in the proliferation of massive commercial grow
operations throughout the country.

Yet, the proposed law isn't making anyone happy. Recreational smokers
predict it will push up the demand and, therefore, the price of
marijuana, making it a more attractive cash crop for organized crime.

People who use the drug for medicinal reasons complain the government
should be finding ways to ensure them an effective and legal supply of
marijuana instead of fiddling around with changes to the Criminal Code.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says the bill will lead to more
drug-induced traffic accidents, because police have no scientific way
to measure how much marijuana-impaired motorists might have been smoking.

Police organizations, meanwhile, argue that removing their
discretionary power to arrest even small-scale marijuana users and
growers will hamper efforts to fight the wider drug war.

"It's one thing to have 15 grams in your house, but should it be
permissible to have 15 grams on the street, where someone could be
pushing those drugs to kids?" asks Kevin McAlpine, chief of the Durham
Regional Police force and co-chair of the organized crime committee
for the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. "That's the fine
detail we're concerned about."

RCMP Chief Superintendent Raf Souccar, director-general of the
Mounties' drugs and organized crime section, says American officials
have privately told him they are "extremely upset" by the
decriminalization proposals.

As for the Senate, its 2002 report called decriminalization the "worst
case scenario" because it would deprive the government of its ability
to regulate and control a drug that decades of lawmaking has failed to
suppress.

Even Bill C-10's own legislative summary warns that tougher marijuana
laws could have the opposite intended effect on organized crime.

"Ironically, one of the possible consequences of heavier penalties may
be to tighten the grip of organized crime on production," the summary
says. "It is doubtful that members of criminal organizations would be
concerned about heavier penalties."

The Senate reported that Canada's courts and police now spend up to
$500 million every year trying to enforce the marijuana laws,
particularly against the indoor "grow-ops" owned by biker gangs, Asian
syndicates and other organized crime groups.

Police say at least 70 per cent of Canada's 2.6 million kilograms of
cannabis output gets sold in the U.S., much of it smuggled across the
border by criminal gangs in exchange for guns, ecstasy and cocaine.
It's America's insatiable appetite for marijuana and the easy money it
promises that has lured organized crime into the marijuana racket in
recent years.

Marc Emery, an activist who broadcasts Internet-based marijuana
programming out of his Pot-TV offices in Vancouver, says the
traditional cannabis community is not inherently profit-focused or
prone to violence; he says these are the unwelcome characteristics
organized criminals are bringing to the business.

Police in Ontario have launched a campaign to smoke out gang-operated
grow-ops with a co-ordinated effort from power companies, banks,
insurance and real estate firms. All of these unwittingly provide
service to grow-ops in some way, and could help police stop new
marijuana operations from moving into homes and other properties
around the province.

CANADIANS & MARIJUANA

FRIDAY: Edmonton's Emily Murphy is widely credited with, or blamed
for, initiating Canada's prohibition on pot 80 years ago.