SUPREME COURT WILL RULE TUESDAY

OTTAWA--The country's top court rules Tuesday whether to uphold
Parliament's criminal laws against marijuana as constitutional --
regardless of Prime Minister Paul Martin's pledge to strike down
criminal penalties for possessing small amounts.

"It could give a whole new meaning to mistletoe," quipped Paul
Burstein, a lawyer involved in one of three cases the Supreme Court of
Canada is to rule on.

The court could uphold the country's 80-year-old ban on possession and
trafficking as a proper exercise of Parliament's criminal lawmaking
power.

The three cases involve very different crimes ranging from having a
half-smoked joint to selling pot through a "Harm Reduction Club." The
defendants involved hope the court will strike down the law and
declare it unfair because it criminalizes an action that produces
little or no harm. They argued the law is unconstitutional because its
potential penalties -- jail and a criminal record -- outweigh the harm
caused, and violate the Charter guarantees of liberty, security of the
person, and principles of fundamental justice.

The court's decision "very much does still matter," said Burstein.
"Even though (Martin) said he's going to decriminalize, that doesn't
make the ruling moot because the ruling may push the line farther than
the government was otherwise willing to go."

Last week, two days after the court announced its pending ruling,
Martin vowed to carry through with legislation, first proposed under
Jean Chretien, to drop criminal penalties against those convicted of
possessing small amounts of pot.

Burstein says he is "optimistic" the court is on the verge of
"something revolutionary."

For Burstein, who along with lawyer Alan Young, has long challenged
the marijuana law, Tuesday's decision is pivotal.

"The ruling is going to draw, if it does anything, the minimal line in
the sand. If the ruling says you cannot criminalize this activity
because it doesn't produce sufficient harm, then the bill
(decriminalizing possession of small amounts) is dead-letter; because
10 grams, 15 grams, 30 grams, in other words until you get to
trafficking -- until you're possessing so much that you're likely to be
trafficking it, the Constitution says you have no right to be
criminalizing."