STOP THROWING CASH INTO POT POLICING: SENATOR

Calls Drug Abuse A Public-Health Issue. Head Of Panel Backing Marijuana's
Legalization Says Penal Measures Have Limited Benefits

Marijuana prohibition is a costly failure and the federal government
shouldn't throw good money after bad by increasing law-enforcement budgets,
says the chairman of a Senate committee that recommends the drug be legalized.

Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin said the only way to stem drug use in Canada is
to approach substance abuse as a public-health issue, not a policing one.

"Penal measures have their place. But why do they take up so much room in
our drug strategies? They are of limited use, and they create more negative
effects than benefits," said Nolin, who yesterday addressed a plenary
session of World Forum 2002, a conference on drugs and dependencies taking
place at the Palais des Congres.

"Some might say it's immoral to allow children access to psychoactive
substances. It's also immoral to encourage organized crime by making those
substances illegal," he said.

Nolin admitted legalization of marijuana probably would increase the number
of users, but suggested any increase would be short-lived. He argued that
legalization would afford more control over marijuana than current laws
allow, and would also allow for more effective prevention methods.

Nolin also pointed out that so far, laws haven't deterred the estimated
225,000 Canadians age 12 to 17 who smoke pot regularly.

"We're not promoting the use of marijuana, we're simply acknowledging it,"
he said.

Daniel Sansfacon - who served as the Senate committee's director of
research - told the plenary that the utopian idea of a drug-free society is
dead and gone, and that laws and policy need to take social realities into
account.

The report, recently made public, was panned by several major
law-enforcement associations, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs
of Police.

Several police officers at this week's conference have said the government
needs to enact stiffer sentences for pot growers and dealers, and pour more
money into "supply control" to enforce existing laws.

"It's our job to apply the law as it exists," Inspector Freddy Foley of the
Surete du Quebec told a workshop on Tuesday.

"If society gets its act together and decides we no longer want these laws,
fine. Until then, we have to enforce the law, and right now we don't have
all the means to do it adequately."

Nolin's conclusions have also drawn fire from other quarters, as was
evidenced during the question-and-answer session that followed the plenary.

Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has stopped short of endorsing the
Senate committee's recommendations, but he has suggested legislation could
be tabled as soon as this fall to decriminalize marijuana possession.

Nolin, a Conservative appointed to the Senator in 1993 by Brian Mulroney,
also took the international community to task for continuing to support
anti-drug laws.

"We can blame international treaties. These treaties penalize countries in
the southern hemisphere that produce source plants, but they encourage
production of chemicals from those same plants by pharmaceutical countries
in the north."