THE RIGHT COMPROMISE

The Liberal government's new draft legislation decriminalizing simple
marijuana possession is a typically Canadian compromise - a bumpy middle
course steered between opposites toward something neither side really quite
approves.

On one side are the many Canadians who favour just plain legalization, and
the larger group which is prepared to treat marijuana use as a minor lapse.
(This newspaper has long favoured de-criminalization.) On the other side
are the numerous Canadians who fear that anything less than the full
punitive weight of the criminal law will lead to increased use of the drug.

Turning yesterday's legislative package into an even clunkier,
this-could-only-be-Canada affair, however, was the accompanying
$240-million education and communications strategy to remind Canadians that
smoking marijuana is injurious to their health and is, in fact, still illegal.

There's no question that plenty of communications will be needed to sort
out the muddle this two-pronged approach will create: Under the bill, you
will be able to have in your possession up to 15 grams of marijuana, an
illegal drug, which can damage your lungs and possibly your brain, with no
fear of anything more than a fine. Dealers and illegal growers, on the
other hand, will face increased sanctions in the form of longer maximum
sentences.

In spite of this apparent incoherence, the new legislation makes
considerable sense.

Why should young people caught with small amounts of marijuana be saddled
with criminal records?

Smoking marijuana is often nothing more than youthful experimentation.
Recent research from the United States, wager of a relentless but
unsuccessful "war on drugs," shows that marijuana does not act as a
"gateway" to such harder drugs as cocaine or heroin.

In the U.S. study, researchers from the independent Rand Drug Policy
Research Centre concluded that teenagers usually try marijuana first simply
because it's more easily available.

Teens who took cocaine or heroin were predisposed to drug use. Eliminating
marijuana from the marketplace would be unlikely to make a dent in the
problem of hard-drug use.

But even if marijuana does not drag teenagers to the use of hard drugs, it
is certainly not a benign substance.

A 2002 study by the British Lung Foundation found that three joints a day
cause the same amount of damage to the lungs as 20 cigarettes. Tar from
joints was found to contain 50 per cent more cancer-causing agents than the
tar in tobacco.

While we don't want young people burdened with a police record over
marijuana, we don't want them to think it's harmless, either.

Some MPs, unhappy with the new legislation, have complained that in
decriminalizing marijuana, the government is sending the wrong signal to
young people.

Jurisdictions like Britain, where young people have been surveyed, have
found that a large majority of children believe marijuana is safe to use.

In avoiding one problem - nuisance prosecutions - our government must be
careful not to create a climate of complacency around the use of marijuana.
Canadians would have greater faith in the ability of the federal government
to mount an effective information and education campaign were it not for
the ongoing controversy over advertising agencies involved in giving
political donations in return for federal ad contracts.

In that context, and despite the need to get the word out about the risks
in marijuana use, the sum of $240 million for an information campaign seems
excessive.

Surely some of that would be better spent on more vigourously pursuing and
prosecuting the criminal gangs which produce and market marijuana.