THE BUZZ ACROSS CANADA: COFFEE HOUSES GO TO POT

MONTREAL -- In many Montreal restaurants, you can bring your own booze. So
what might be the next logical step?

"It'll be bring-your-own-buzz," says Hugo St-Onge.

The leader of the Bloc Pot, a provincial pro-marijuana party, he wants to
open a cafe where you can light up your own cannabis.

And he isn't alone. Across Canada, a small but growing number of coffee
houses encourage customers to bring their own joints, taking advantage of
the current legal ambiguity over simple possession of cannabis.

The Bloc Pot's project suffered an unexpected setback yesterday when the
landlord of the cafe that was to open Oct. 1 got wind of the move and
complained he hadn't given his approval.

Nevertheless, the idea is mushrooming across the nation.

In Montreal, organizers envision an alternative coffee house in the Latin
Quarter. In Toronto, the promoter doesn't want a hippie hangout and
promises instead pool tables and pinball machines.

Whatever the style, pot proponents hope that, at a time when other
restaurants are trying to curb smoking, theirs will be places where smokers
of a certain type are welcome. Opened five years ago in pot-tolerant
Vancouver, Blunt Brothers cafe used to be the sole establishment of the
type in the country.

But now, within the last six months, bring-your-own-joint shops have sprung
up in Saint John, London, Ont., and Toronto, where the Hot Box will be
joined this fall by a similar coffee house.

"The whole country is changing tremendously. This was inevitable," said
Dominic Cramer, director of Toronto's second cannabis cafe. "We intend to
break no laws. There will be no trafficking."

Promoters of those coffee houses are gambling the current lenient climate
will shield their customers from legal troubles.

"Better there than on the streets. It gives us a place we can call our
own," said Boris St-Maurice, leader of the federal Marijuana Party.

In Ontario, the courts have ruled that the federal law banning marijuana
possession no longer applied because Ottawa failed to comply with a
previous court order to create a new legislation.

While the rulings is being appealed, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has
tabled new legislation where possession of up to 15 grams of cannabis would
only be a minor offence.

That bill hasn't been enacted yet however, and in that muddled context,
some police forces have not been laying charges in cases involving small
amounts of pot.

As for Mr. Cramer's Time's High Cafe, "we're not a granola place. We'll
have a pool table, pinball machines," he said.