MARIJUANA EDGING SLOWLY CLOSER TO LEGALITY IN CANADA

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The door-kicking has stopped, as have asset
forfeitures and harassment. Chris Bennett hasn't been arrested in weeks,
nor have his friends.

Still, Bennett, 40, isn't inclined to say the battle is won.

He has seen the police relax before. He has seen pot achieve a tenuous
level of respectability when a more liberal-minded mayor or police chief
takes over. And he has seen the subsequent backlash.

"Every time we talk to the press, something happens," he says, sitting in
the store he manages, the Marijuana Party Headquarters.

While Bennett talks, he selects a handful of green cannabis buds from a
cluster the size of a hoagie. Pungent, bluish haze hangs in the air, and
customers casually light up.

"I've had friends arrested the next day after talking to reporters about
pot," he says. "So you can see why I'm nervous."

Nervous but willing to talk. Despite Bennett's concern, the likelihood of
marijuana legalization in Canada never has been stronger, despite strong
U.S. government objections and opposition in the country.

A medical marijuana law is in place nationally. Late last year, the House
of Commons and Canadian Senate in official reports endorsed some form of
pot legalization, as have the justice and prime ministers.

Justice Minister Martin Cauchon recently promised to ease marijuana laws
this year, making possession of a small amount punishable with the
equivalent of a parking ticket.

In Vancouver, this has happened, if not in law, then in practice. Although
cannabis is illegal and its possession is a criminal offense, the city
effectively has decriminalized it. Cops rarely bust the dozens of dealers
selling grams of pot and hashish on East Hastings Street. On a Sunday
afternoon, pot is nearly as easy to buy as a six-pack of beer.

All of which has made east downtown Vancouver, where the Marijuana Party
storefront sits sandwiched between cafes named the New Amsterdam and Blunt
Bros. a bit smokier and, judging from the number of signs offering
"munchies," a bit hungrier, too.

"Dude, the cookies rock," says Justin B., a 24-year-old Seattle resident
sitting at a cribbage board in Blunt Bros. while his buddies light up in
the cafe's rear-corner booth.

Justin, who asked that his last name not be printed, says he loves
Vancouver because police "let (pot) smokers be."

Which is what U.S. and Washington state officials fear. Justin is the image
of drug czar John Walters' nightmare.

Walters, fresh from a recent trip to Vancouver to explain to the Canadians
how wrongheaded their drug permissiveness is, believes that not only will
Americans flock to Canada for drug vacations, but that more pot will enter
the States.

"Nothing gets better with more drug use," Walters said in a recent
interview. "I think you are seeing in Vancouver a level of denial (among
public officials) about marijuana's place among addictive drugs."

According to statistics from Walters' office, pot, not alcohol, is the No.
1 drug treatment issue among U.S. residents younger than 18. Nearly 95
percent of the pot grown in British Columbia heads to the United States for
sale, the office says.