CAUCHON VOWS QUICK ACTION DESPITE PM'S RELUCTANCE

OTTAWA - Despite the Prime Minister's misgivings, Martin Cauchon, the
Justice Minister, says he intends to pursue decriminalization of marijuana
by taking a proposal to the federal Cabinet "in the weeks ahead."

Mr. Cauchon heads to Europe today, where he will discuss pot
decriminalization with his counterparts in France, England and Germany,
which have relaxed their laws or plan to do so.

"I want to move ahead as quickly as I can," Mr. Cauchon said yesterday,
when asked whether Jean Chretien's hesitancy will delay legislation.

Mr. Cauchon, a 40-year-old who has confessed to smoking pot in his youth,
acknowledged that he and his boss may have a difference of opinion on
whether marijuana possession should be eliminated from the Criminal Code.

But Mr. Cauchon, who has been a Chretien loyalist through his leadership
problems, denied there is a generation gap between he and the Prime
Minister, who turns 69 on Saturday and says he did not even know what
marijuana was when he was growing up.

Mr. Chretien's reluctance to modernize laws is in step with a significant
portion of Canadian society, Mr. Cauchon said. "He is a guy that
understands perfectly our Canadian society. He knows where we are on many,
many issues."

A recent poll conducted for Southam News indicated that Canadians are split
on whether simple possession should be decriminalized.

Mr. Chretien, in a television interview with Global TV before Christmas,
said the government must debate marijuana decriminalization further and
that a decision will have to be made one day.

But Mr. Cauchon says he intends to introduce legislation in the next few
months because the issue has been simmering for decades and "it's time to
deal with that question."

Skeptics, who say justice ministers have hinted for 30 years that marijuana
will be decriminalized, have suggested Mr. Cauchon's plans will never come
to fruition before Mr. Chretien's retirement.

In Europe, Mr. Cauchon will meet with David Blunkett, the British Home
Secretary, Dominique Perben, the French Justice Minister, and Germany's
Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries.

Mr. Blunkett announced last summer than Britain would relax cannabis laws
by July, 2003, making possession of small amounts or smoking pot in private
an offence that would not result in arrest.

Only days after Britain's announcement, Mr. Cauchon said he, too, was
considering easing Canada's laws so people caught with small amounts would
be fined instead of being saddled with a criminal record.

Germany and France also have eased their laws in recent years, according to
a report supplied by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

A House of Commons committee recently recommended that Canadians caught
with less than 30 grams -- the equivalent of an ounce in the old Imperial
system of measurement -- should be fined rather than criminally charged.