ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE - US BLOWBACK FROM CANADA'S POT LAW

If international relations were a movie, Canada would be one of those demure
heroines who remains in the background for most of the film but surprises
the audience at a pivotal moment by standing up to -- or ignoring -- the
leading man.

It's as if we have to be reminded now and then that our closest neighbor is
a nation unto itself. Our economic fates may be joined at the hip, and many
Americans living along their northern border may continue to find Ontario
less exotic or threatening than Florida, Texas or (God knows) California.
But that sovereign state thing never really goes away. And now -- just when
you thought it was safe to go back to Toronto -- our licentious friends to
the north are flexing their independence again.

Last Sunday's Toronto Globe and Mail reported that the Canadian parliament
may take up legislation decriminalizing possession of marijuana in amounts
below 15 grams -- the quantity found in about 20 cigarettes -- as soon as
tomorrow. If it's adopted, a person caught with a few joints would escape
with a ticket and a small fine.

Drivers, stop your engines!

The Bush administration, which admirably resisted international hysteria
over Ontario's SARS outbreak, has displayed markedly less composure in the
face of decriminalized pot.

John Walters, the White House drug czar, has stumped Canada from the
Atlantic provinces to Vancouver, warning about the proposal's impact on
Canadian youth and, more ominously, cross-border trade.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says relaxation of Canada's
cannabis law would force customs officials here to increase scrutiny of
vehicles entering Detroit, increasing costly delays at the busiest truck
crossing in North America.

So let me get this straight: Right now, with U.S. foreign and domestic
policymakers grimly focused on preventing the next 9/11 and security
officials fretting about the ease with which terrorists might smuggle
biological or chemical weapons into the United States, we're at one level of
border security. But the prospect of tourists slipping across the border
with a few joints in their kits means we may have to kick it up a notch?

Am I missing something? When was the last time a group of stoners burned
down anything bigger than their own campsite?

Drug-enforcement officials worry that relaxing penalties for marijuana use
in Canada will embolden traffickers to set up more smuggling operations near
the U.S. border. They also worry that teens in border states like Michigan
and New York will sneak into the provinces to get high.

To Canadians, of course, this is the quintessence of Yankee arrogance:
expecting trade threats and Canadian police to do the work of negligent
American parents. (It's 10 o'clock: Do you know what country your child is
in?)

I suspect the DEA is right, to a point. Decriminalizing Canadian pot will
probably lead to greater use in this country. But when push comes to shove,
the commercial realists in the Bush administration won't let the bluenoses
threaten a $62 billion trading relationship.

The likelier long-term consequence is that the United States will eventually
follow Canada and most of the European Union in the direction of
decriminalization. And you know where that leads.

Just watch: In 10 years, we'll be using reefer-tax revenues to pay for
scholarships.