SMOKE SIGNALS

A new Health Canada report on the attitudes of adolescents and teens
towards marijuana and tobacco indicates kids believe toking is less
hazardous to a person's health and that buying a joint is easier than
buying cigarettes. This is instructive to legislators and parents.

The findings - the result of focus groups in four Canadian cities - are
useful to parents: Smoking either drug is risky. There is good evidence pot
is no more dangerous than alcohol - a fact teenagers seem aware of as
surveys indicate more and more are using marijuana. But the emphasis of
public campaigns on demonizing tobacco also seems to have given pot too
free a ride.

A bill to decriminalize marijuana, expected soon in Parliament, would
replace jail terms with fines for simple possession of marijuana. But it
will not cut pot's ties to organized criminal gangs and the wider drug
trade, arguably a greater hazard to kids in the school yard. The failure of
law to sway teens away from pot is apparent. The fact regulation and
education work with tobacco suggests marijuana, too, could be legal and
well-controlled.