DON'T TREAT POT AS CRIMINAL ISSUE

First came Health Minister Alan Rock's move to create a permit system that
allows pot use by a select few Canadians with various medical ailments.

Now, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon reportedly wants to follow British
Home Secretary David Blunkett's move last week and ease up on Canada's
marijuana laws to make simple possession punishable with a fine instead of
possible incarceration.

Perhaps it won't be too much longer -- after Senator Pierre Claude Nolin's
committee tables in September its findings on illegal drugs, and the
Commons committee studying drug policy reports this winter -- before
Cauchon does the sensible thing by dropping the prohibition mentality to
decriminalize pot and treat it as a regulated substance akin to alcohol.

In announcing that marijuana will be listed as a less dangerous Class C
drug, Blunkett said the move would free up police resources to tackle
Britain's problem with harder drugs such as heroin and cocaine. While
Cauchon hasn't yet make his plans public, senior Justice officials told
Canadian Press that Canada's approach is likely to emulate Britain's, with
fines for small-time users and beefed up sentences for traffickers, but
stop short of decriminalization.

Critics such as Marc-Boris Saint-Maurice, leader of the federal Marijuana
Party which got 65,000 votes in the last election, suggest that the fines
will end up being another source of revenue for governments, with monthly
quotas established by police to fill the coffers.

Senator Nolin bluntly notes that most of those nabbed for possession will
be young and poor persons, who'll end up in jail because they don't pay
their fines.

A preliminary report by his committee indicates that nearly 30,000 people
are charged annually for simple possession -- nearly half of all the
current drug charges -- a figure that could well rise if the relatively
minor penalty of a fine means the arresting officers aren't deterred by the
prospect of saddling young pot users with criminal records. Given that from
one-third to one-half of Canadians aged 15 to 24 admit to having used
marijuana, the pool of potential fine payers is rather deep.

Even the conservative Fraser Institute has suggested that governments take
a different tack on drugs than persisting with the abject failure that is
their "war on drugs." Rather than opt for fines for pot users to free up
police resources to fight even harder the futile "war," Cauchon needs to
rethink the government's approach to drugs.

As the institute's senior fellow Patrick Basham notes, drug use needs to be
separated from prohibition, with public resources shifted from treating it
as a law enforcement problem to one that addresses its medical and social
components.

Not only does prohibition demonstrate governments' failure to learn from
history, it contributes to crime, corrupts police officers and violates
civil liberties and individual rights, according to Basham.

What's more, he says, "Prohibition's drain on the public purse prevents the
necessary rehabilitation, detoxification and other treatment facilities
from being funded at anything more than a fraction of the required level."

There's little doubt that, even though Cauchon might be willing to go as
far as Britain on relaxing pot laws, he'll be reluctant to adopt any calls
from the parliamentary committees to decriminalize marijuana because of the
inevitable reaction from a U.S. government committed to the failing drug war.

However, a Canada that's willing to mount the moral high horse to take on
the Americans over their stance on a world court surely can defend
decriminalizing pot as sound social policy on fiscal and ethical grounds.