WHILE CANADA EXPLORES LEGALIZING POT, AMERICA'S DRUG WAR ESCALATES

Canada is considering waving the white flag in a key battle of the drug war.

Our often quirky neighbor is exploring the legalization of marijuana and
its potential surrender leaves the drug warriors in this country aghast.

They envision aging hippies, stressed out executives, curious kids and the
whole of Middle America squeezing through border checkpoints to get their
hands on some legal Canadian dope.

The model is set. Canada's 19-year-old drinking age already pulls throngs
of Metro Detroit teens across the bridge and through the tunnel to
Windsor's bars and dance clubs.

Canada's flirtation with legalization is pragmatic. No matter what it has
done to curb marijuana cultivation and use, the people there still choose
to smoke pot.

And so do the people here. Roughly 10 million Americans use marijuana on a
regular basis. But contrast Canada's approach to that of the United States.

America's drug czar, John Walters, visited Detroit recently to talk about a
reinvigorated effort to stamp out marijuana. It will be battled on the
supply side, as always, but also with beefed up education programs aimed at
curbing demand.

It's a scare campaign to highlight the harmful effects of marijuana and its
role as a gateway drug to more dangerous narcotics. Walters aims to dispel
the popular notion that marijuana has more in common with alcohol and
tobacco than with cocaine and heroin.

He says increasing toxicity levels in marijuana make it more addictive, and
even fatal, and that children are the most vulnerable. He promises a
cigarette-style effort that relentlessly pounds home the message of
marijuana's evils, while making access to it more difficult.

Walter's fear is that if it chooses legalization, Canada will condone
marijuana use and remove the deterence that comes with criminal sanctions.

His approach to the drug war sounds like another version of the tried-
and-failed tactics of the last 30 years. We've never had much success in
protecting people from their vices or from their own self- destructive
tendencies, and nothing in this new plan offers hope of change.

Canada, on the other hand, is at least willing to discuss a different
approach. While legalization might drive up drug use rates by making
marijuana easier to get, it might also make marijuana easier to control.

Certainly Walters' concern about toxicity levels could be addressed if
government could monitor the production process. Store-bought booze,
heavily regulated by the feds, is less poisonous than the stuff cooked up
in moonshine stills.

Removing distribution of pot from the criminal gangs might also provide a
better chance for keeping it away from children. As long as gangsters
control the marketing of pot, children will be directly targeted. If
marijuana were sold through legal channels, the same measures used to keep
alcohol and tobacco away from kids could be put in place.

Marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the drug use in this country. We spend
upward of $50 billion a year combating narcotics, with much of that going
to fight pot. No one, not even the legalization advocates in Canada,
contends that marijuana is harmless. The debate is whether it's any more
harmful than the legal products for getting high now available at every
corner market.

An honest examination of that question could save the country a lot of
money and grief.