ROCK OPEN TO DEBATE ON POT LEGALIZATION

Committee Likely To Study 'All Options'

Maybe it's something in the air.

A month ago, clouds of tear gas billowed through Quebec City.

But now that the Summit of the Americas is memory and rain has washed its
vestiges away, visiting federal politicians are choosing the Old Capital to
come out on the issue of marijuana.

On Tuesday, Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark said here that he
favours decriminalizing the drug, instead making marijuana possession a
civil offence, like a traffic violation.

Yesterday, Health Minister Allan Rock said he would "participate with
enthusiasm" in planned House of Commons hearings into the possible
decriminalization or even legalization of "mari," as he described it, using
the familiar French term for "pot."

"It (legalization) is one of the things that will be discussed by the
committee, I am sure, and I will participate with enthusiasm," Rock told
reporters.

The minister was at Universite Laval to announce $82.6 million in grants
for medical research projects to 21 universities and teaching hospitals in
the province, when reporters asked him for his position on the legalization
of marijuana.

Rock noted that, as health minister, he made marijuana legal in Canada for
medical purposes and, when committee hearings on non-medical use of
marijuana were proposed, he agreed.

"I think that now is an appropriate time to study all that to determine if
we as a country, if we have an approach and appropriate policy to favour
people's health."

While he stopped short of advocating legalization, saying he does not want
to prejudge the work of the committee, Rock recalled that it has been 30
years since the LeDain Commission on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs
recommended decriminalization of marijuana and the possibility of its
gradual legalization.

The Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau, which named the LeDain
Commission, did not carry out those recommendations.

"I think things have changed since LeDain, but as I say, I don't want to
prejudge a process that is just now getting started," Rock said.

"I think the committee will look at all options. As far as I am concerned
at Health Canada, my focus has been on medical marijuana and making that
available, because I think there are strong reasons on compassionate
grounds to make medical marijuana available, which we have done."

Rock also noted that a Senate committee, headed by Tory Senator Pierre
Claude Nolin, is already looking into the legalization of marijuana.

The minister has only smiled when asked whether he ever smoked marijuana,
but in 1969 as president of the University of Ottawa students' union, he
invited Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Ottawa after their week-long
bed-in for peace at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Lennon openly
embraced the use of pot.

Clark and Rock appear to be joining a groundswell of support for at least
decriminalizing pot.

Justice Minister Anne McLellan said Friday she is open to such a debate.

On Tuesday, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said he's willing to discuss
softening Canada's laws against pot.

Like Clark, Klein made it clear his position is a personal one, not
necessarily shared by his party colleagues.

But popular opinion appears to have shifted. A new national survey by
University of Lethbridge sociologist Reg Bibby shows 47 per cent of
Canadians now favour the drug's legalization, compared with 30 per cent in
the mid-1970s and mid-1990s.

The $82.6 million in medical research grants Rock announced yesterday for
Quebec institutions is part of a $234-million commitment by the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research to institutions across the country.

Laval's share is $15.8 million.

"We talk about the brain drain. We talk about keeping our best and
brightest in Canada," the health minister said.

"The way we do that, it seems to me, is by investing in our universities,
in our researchers, and that's what today is all about."