US RIPS CANADA PLAN TO EASE MARIJUANA LAWS

WASHINGTON -- John Walters, the White House's top drug policymaker, said
yesterday Canada was a blemish in an otherwise successful effort by the
United States to cut back illegal drug production in the Western Hemisphere.

''It is the one place in the hemisphere where things are going the wrong
way,'' said Walters, the director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy. He has been an outspoken critic of a proposed Canadian
law to ease penalties for marijuana possession.

Walters told a Washington think tank that Canadians who have privately
expressed concerns with the policies of Prime Minister Jean Chretien should
make their objections public.

His statement came as Parliament was beginning debate on a bill introduced
by the Chretien government that would end criminal penalties for possessing
about half an ounce of marijuana.

Canadian officials dismissed the comments by Walters, saying Washington's
own data showed that of all the illegal marijuana US agents seize, 1.5
percent came from Canada.

''That person that you just referred to should maybe look at his own
backyard,'' Justice Minister Martin Cauchon told reporters in Ottawa,
saying at least 10 US states had introduced similar lesser sanctions for
marijuana use.

Walters said Canadian laws were too soft on traffickers and that marijuana
shipments from there were booming.