CRITICS DISMISS UN DRUG REPORT AS US - DRIVEN

Ottawa(CP) The federal government is prepared to put up more money to
fight recreational drug use, an approach others say is U.S. driven
and out of touch with trends elsewhere.

Attourney General Anne Mclellan reiterated Liberal policy Wednesday
after the United Nations criticized Canada's anti-drug efforts.

"It's clear that we can do more and we must do more," Mclellan said
outside Liberal caucus. "We're going to put more resources toward
that. Certainly we as a government are seized with the issue."

The U.N. report said Canada's attitude toward illegal growers of
cannabis is lax and has not controlled illicit production of drugs
such as "ice" and "ecstasy".

The U.N. International Narcotics Control Board said Canadian court
sentences to cannabis growers and couriers essentially amounts to a
slap on the wrist.

"We wonder whether that policy is a sufficient deterrent to get
people not to grow cannabis," said Herbert Schaepe, the board
secretary.

The U.N. position, and Liberal policy, were challenged by Neil Boyd,
a criminologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.

The U.N. report and Ottawa's get tough attitude are driven by U.S.
policy, he said in an interview.

"It's an American driven criticism. the democracies of Western Europe
are headed in a very different direction than Canada."

The Netherlands has permitted distribution of marijuana in coffee
shops for 25 years, he noted, and rates of use there have always
remained lower than in Canada or the United States.

Canadian law is unduly influenced by the U.S., he said.

"Our policies are actually much more harsh than most of the policies
that exist in the democracies of Western Europe."

The U.N. says that the United States has been successful in dealing
with it's illicit cannabis, while Canada's efforts have yielded only
limited results. Boyd called that claim bogus.