POT DEBATE FUELS FORUM

Premiers, Mayor To Address Crowd

A Canadian Senate committee's call to legalize possession of marijuana will
fuel one of the key debates at an international forum on drugs and
addiction that begins tomorrow in downtown Montreal.

"We have every aspect of this issue represented at the forum so it will
make for a very interesting debate," Luc Chabot, executive director of the
World Forum on Drugs, Dependencies and Society, said yesterday.

Included among the 3,000 participants from 50 countries is Senator
Pierre-Claude Nolin, whose committee on illegal drugs this month
recommended that possession of North America's most popular illicit drug be
legalized in Canada.

Quebec Premier Bernard Landry, Paul Okalik, premier of Nunavut, and
Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay are among the headliners at tomorrow's
opening session at the Palais des Congres.

Other hot topics include drugs in organized sports, gambling addiction and
the geopolitics of illicit drugs, notably their role in terrorist activities.