BLOC POT HOPING TO PLAY SPOILER'S ROLE IN TIGHT RACES

Wants Marijuana Legalized. Fifty-Three Candidates Already Signed Up, Party
Hopes to Find 72 More Before Election

Bloc Pot provides the real alternative in the provincial election because
it's the only party that doesn't seek power but wants to actually change
something, its leader said yesterday.

The 5-year-old party, which is beating the bushes for 72 candidates to add
to its slate of 53, would end prohibitions against marijuana, promote
medical marijuana and seek legalization or non-intervention policies for
"the responsible use" of marijuana.

"We are more than a protest vote," Hugo St-Onge said during the launch of
the Bloc campaign in Old Montreal. "It's very pragmatic to vote for us."

If the Bloc Pot bags a significant percentage of the popular vote,
established political parties - those that do aspire to govern - may be
drawn to the anti-prohibitionist's cause because there are votes to be had,
St-Onge said.

Another happy consequence of a Bloc vote is that it may frighten or anger
the three mainstream parties because, in tight races, Bloc votes could
swing the riding, St-Onge told reporters with evident delight.

In the 1998 general elections, the fledgling party fielded candidates in 23
ridings and obtained about 1.25 per cent of the votes cast in those
ridings, he said. In subsequent by-elections, it did better, getting just
over five per cent of the votes cast in Mercier, coming in less than 200
votes behind the Action d?mocratique de Qu?bec candidate.

This time around, the party already has 53 candidates and anticipates a
full slate. It also plans an array of fund-raising activities, including a
drawing for airline tickets to Amsterdam for two people as well as tickets
to the Coupe Cannabis de Montreal, a rather clandestine competitive event
for marijuana growers.

One of the party's star candidates is Guillaume Blouin-Beaudoin, running
for the second time in Viau. In 1998, he won third place in the riding -
with about 1,700 votes or just over six per cent of ballots cast - largely
due to the unexpected mid-campaign withdrawal of the Parti Quebecois candidate.

The good showing has apparently inspired Blouin-Beaudoin, 23. Although
currently unemployed, he has a CEGEP education, an affinity for languages -
speaking five with some fluency - and ambitions.

"The main thing is the (party's) ideals. Even if the ideals are
(appropriated) by the other parties, I will have won.

"But I pretty much would like to have this job," Blouin-Beaudoin said.

For more information: www.blocpot.qc.ca