BRITS' NEW POT LAW SENSIBLE

Britain's new marijuana policy is a weasly, neither-here-or-there,
in-between compromise that will satisfy neither pot smokers nor their
detractors. It is, in other words, a brilliant solution, and one we should
adopt in Canada.

Wednesday, the British government announced that marijuana and hashish will
have their classifications downgraded. The new rules, to come into effect
next July, mean an end to arrests for possession of a small amount.
Instead, police may confiscate the drug and issue a warning. Arrests will
only be made if public order is threatened or children are at risk.

No one will be happy with this law, but everyone gets something. People who
want marijuana to remain against the law get their way: it stays,
technically, illegal. But those who want a more reasonable drug policy win
some leniency.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said the current rules are "disproportionate
in relation to the harm it causes" and the law has to be made "open, honest
and believable." Instead of charging 1,400 people a week with cannabis
offences, British police will be allowed to concentrate on more serious
drugs, he said, such as heroin and cocaine.

What a contrast between Britain's proactive, sensible compromise, and
Canada's endless dithering. Thirty years after the LeDain Commission
recommended decriminalization, two parliamentary committees are currently
studying the question. In April, a House of Commons move to decriminalize,
led by Canadian Alliance MP Keith Martin, was killed without coming to a vote.

Politicians on the left and right in Canada have openly called for
decriminalization. The RCMP and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of
Police support decriminalization, too. But the governing Liberals are
refusing to consider the idea.

The reason: we are too close to the U.S. Our neighbour continues with its
simplistic fantasy that all illegal drugs are bad and all legal drugs good.
Against all common sense and the experience of tens of millions of its own
citizens, it continues to insist that the only people who smoke marijuana
are criminals, freaks and ne'er-do-wells intent on destroying civilization.

In fact, doctors, teachers and judges have been known to smoke, too, and
for the same, simple reason: like alcohol and chocolate pudding, it makes
them feel good.

Mark Steel, writing yesterday in The Independent in London, had a good
point. People who are proud never to have smoked pot, he says, often suffer
from the hallucination that they are expert on its effects, and that the
millions of people who have smoked know nothing about it.

This kind of hilarious paradox happens in the war on drugs. But this stupid
war continues to cause unnecessary pain. In Canada in 1998, almost 35,000
people were charged with marijuana offences. Being caught with up to 30
grams of marijuana can still get you a criminal record, a $1,000 fine, and
six months in jail.

Two-thirds of Canadians say the jail sentence should be dropped, and most
say marijuana possession does not warrant a criminal record. Yet the
government does nothing.

In a perfect world, we would legalize marijuana, but we're not allowed to
do that. Legalization is out of the question because our trade treaties
with the U.S. prevent us from legalizing illegal drugs.

The British solution is the next best option.