CANADA'S TOLERANCE ON MARIJUANA FADES

The marijuana harvest in British Columbia generated about 7 billion
Canadian dollars (US$7 billion) last year, making it one of the most
lucrative industries in the Canadian province. But after a string of
high-profile arrests and slayings -- including the execution-style
murders of six people in October -- the easygoing attitude that has
long surrounded marijuana in Canada is under attack.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling for a cultural
shift, to be enforced by what his political opponents are calling an
American-style war on drugs. He has introduced legislation that would
set mandatory minimum jail sentences for marijuana growers and
traffickers, and he is seeking more money for enforcement and prosecution.

"What we are up against...is a culture that since the 1960s has at
the minimum not discouraged drug use and often romanticized it or
made it cool, made it acceptable," Mr. Harper said when he announced
his plan in October. The bill is expected to come up for legislative
debate next month. Canadians use marijuana more than any country in
Europe, Asia or Latin America, according to the United Nations' 2007
World Drug Report. Only people in Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Ghana
and Zambia smoke more. That news in July elicited the headline "The
True North Stoned and Free," in the typically staid Canadian
newspaper the Globe and Mail. A poll last summer by the Angus Reid
Global Monitor found that 55% of Canadians think marijuana should be legalized.

Starting with the efforts of a group of American war resisters in the
1970s, British Columbia has been at the forefront of Canada's
marijuana industry. By 2000, marijuana was grown in 17,500 homes in
the province, according to a study by Simon Fraser University
economist Steve Easton. In 2001, the Canadian government showed a
tolerance for cannabis by becoming the first nation to regulate its
consumption for medical reasons. In 2004, the government, headed then
by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, reintroduced a bill to
decriminalize possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana, making
it subject to a fine but leaving no criminal record. The bill never
came up for a vote.

In Vancouver, meanwhile, large profits, lenient laws, lax enforcement
and an established smuggling and money-laundering infrastructure
attracted organized crime. Though greater Vancouver remains one of
the safest metropolitan areas in North America, at least 19 fatal
drug-related shootings took place there last year. A double murder
occurred at a Chinese restaurant in August, and two of the six people
slain in October in an apartment building were innocent bystanders.
In November, a reputed gang leader was shot outside his C$5 million mansion.

And then, early on Dec. 4, in an arrest that highlighted Vancouver's
role as a base for the global distribution of illicit drugs, police
arrested Yong Long Ye, alleging he imported drugs from the U.S. and
Southeast Asia and exported it across North America and to Australia.

One of Mr. Ye's alleged associates operated a greenhouse on the
outskirts of Vancouver that was jammed with 9,000 marijuana plants.
Pat Fogarty, a police officer who oversaw the investigation,
described being in the greenhouse as "like walking in a forest."

Prime Minister Harper's bill proposes to beef up sentences for drug
traffickers at all levels, but it is the stiff penalties for small
marijuana growers not involved with organized crime that have raised
concern in Vancouver. "When I think about drug problems, I don't
think about marijuana," said Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, who favors
legalizing the drug. "In my experience, the people who smoke
marijuana are not a problem for public order or crime."

Canadian judges can use their discretion about whether to sentence
drug offenders to prison. Mr. Easton's research showed that a small
fraction of them serve jail time and that the average sentence of
those who do is about four months.

Mr. Harper's bill proposes a six-month mandatory sentence for growing
as little as one marijuana plant for the purposes of trafficking.
Senator Larry Campbell, a former Vancouver mayor and former drug
officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, disagrees with Mr.
Harper's approach, and he supports legalization. Mr. Campbell said
the high rate of jail and recidivism in the U.S. is proof that the
war on drugs to the south has failed.

"Harper is looking for a wedge issue, and he's found it," Mr.
Campbell said. "It makes no sense, but it makes good politics."