NO JAIL FOR POT POSSESSION, ALLIANCE HOPEFUL SAYS

Stockwell Day pushed for drug stance in radio chat.

No one should do jail time for simple possession of marijuana,
Canadian Alliance leadership candidate Stockwell Day said Monday.

Day, who is known for a law-and-order stance, said last month that he
smoked pot as a youth.

During a visit to Vancouver on Monday, Day was challenged by a caller
to CKNW's Rafe Mair show to come out against jail time for simple possession.

"It's time we got these people who smoke a joint out of jail," the
caller said.

Day agreed, saying simple possession should be punished by a fine or
"something else."

"But don't fill up the jails with those."

When Mair asked Day if he had smoked marijuana, the former Alberta
treasurer replied: "I said that I did."

When Mair said "I like you better already," Day laughed and thanked
Mair for reminding listeners of his past offences, "just in case
anyone out there had forgotten."

In April, Day admitted to reporters following a law-and-order speech
in rural Ontario that he smoked marijuana 30 years ago.

"Yes I have done marijuana. And I did inhale," Day, 49 said, but
added that young people should leave marijuana alone.

Delegates attending last January's Alliance policy conference
considered a proposal to decriminalize marijuana in order to save
police resources, but decided against it.

Day also praised a controversial policy introduced and later withdrawn
by B.C.'s NDP government.

In the mid-1990s, B.C. refused to pay welfare to anyone who had not
lived in the province for at least three months. The policy, which
angered many in the NDP, was dropped in 1997 after the federal
government withheld federal funds from the province.

Day said B.C. was forced to adopt the policy because the Alberta
government had refused welfare to young, healthy employable persons.
Many of those people then moved to B.C. in search of welfare, Day said.

When B.C. responded with the residency requirement, "the federal
government stepped in and said, 'Bad government, bad B.C., you can't
do that and we will fine you every day you have that residency
requirement.'