THE FEDS BUCK A TREND ON MARIJUANA LAWS

Canada's governing Liberal Party introduced a bill the other day that would
decriminalize the possession of up to 15 grams of marijuana. "Cannabis
consumption is first and foremost a health matter," Justice Minister Martin
Couchon declared. "It should not result in criminal penalties."

Under the new plan, a minor pot offense would be punished with a citation
and a fine, much like a speeding ticket.

The bill is strongly opposed by the Bush administration, which has
threatened to step up drug searches at the border, creating traffic jams
and delaying Canadian exports. "It is my job to protect Americans from
dangerous threats," John P. Walters, director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy, warned last year, "and right now, Canada is a
dangerous staging area for some of the most dangerous marijuana."

The conflict revolves around a question being addressed in other Western
nations: should marijuana be legal, illegal - or something in between?

Canada's move to decriminalize is part of a shift in international
attitudes toward pot, away from the "reefer madness" legacy.

Spain and Italy decriminalized marijuana in the 1990's. Portugal
decriminalized it in 2001, Luxembourg and Belgium the next year. In the
Netherlands - where pot has been available since 1976 - "pharmaceutical
grade" cannabis is provided, free of charge, through the national health
service.

Britain plans to reduce penalties for possession this summer, a policy
supported by the nation's leading medical journal, The Lancet. It
concluded, "moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on health."

Meanwhile, the United States has escalated its war on pot. The number of
marijuana arrests now approaches three-quarters of a million annually,
largely for simple possession. More people are in prison for marijuana
crimes today than ever before. Dozens, if not hundreds, are serving life
sentences for nonviolent pot offenses. Attorney General John Ashcroft has
called for full enforcement of the pot laws and spearheaded a crackdown on
medicinal marijuana providers in California, though their efforts are legal
under state law.

The war on marijuana, however, is by no means a partisan affair. It unites
Democrats and Republicans in a uniquely American crusade waged on moral
grounds.

Though Bill Clinton was the first president to admit having put a joint in
his mouth, more people were arrested for marijuana during his
administration than under any other American president. Richard M. Nixon
may have seemed the nemesis of young pot smokers, but more than three times
as many people were arrested for pot while Mr. Clinton was
president. "Marijuana is illegal, dangerous, unhealthy and wrong," said
Donna E. Shalala, his secretary of health and human services.

The prohibition of marijuana in the United States has historically been
driven more by a fear and dislike of people associated with it than by
reasoned consideration of its actual harm. The laws have been used to
sanction racial minorities and nonconformists. Oddly enough, the first
American law about marijuana, passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1619,
required every household to grow it. Hemp was considered a valuable commodity.

Popular fears of marijuana arose in the early 20th century, prompted by the
use of the drug by Mexican immigrants. Rumors spread about the "killer
weed" that incited violent crimes and drove its users insane.

Marijuana was linked not only to poor Mexicans, but also to poor blacks and
the new music they played: jazz. Jazz was then regarded much as hip-hop is
today in some circles, as a subversive and barbaric threat to the national
morality. Not long after marijuana was outlawed in 1937, the Federal
Bureau of Narcotics planned to stage a nationwide roundup of black jazz
musicians who smoked pot. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the bureau, hated
jazz and saw it as a corrupting influence in American life. The plan was
thwarted, however, by the inability of its agents to infiltrate the jazz
milieu.

First Mexicans, blacks and jazz musicians; then beatniks and hippies; now
members of the hip-hop world - marijuana has always been associated with
minorities and subcultures that seem to threaten mainstream
America. America's marijuana laws usually expressed that fear of outsiders
in moralistic terms, while proving ineffective at stopping pot use.

The hippie counterculture of the 1960's rose at a time when America's
marijuana laws were at their harshest; in Louisiana, possessing any pot
could mean a prison sentence of 99 years. Pot use flourished, as a form of
rebellion, and middle-class parents questioned the stiff laws, once their
children were jailed for possessing a joint.

The comedians Cheech & Chong became the embodiment of a new stoner culture;
far from alarming, it was presented as sweet and ridiculous. In 1972 a
commission appointed by President Nixon advocated decriminalizing
marijuana, aiming to "desymbolize it." The following year Oregon became the
first state to decriminalize pot; 11 other states followed; and President
Jimmy Carter supported decriminalization at the federal level. By the end
of the 1970's, as marijuana laws were being relaxed in the United States,
pot use among teenagers reached its peak and then started to decline.

Moral condemnations of pot smokers and long prison sentences were revived
by President Ronald Reagan, as a part of that era's culture
wars. Mr. Reagan's first drug czar, Carlton E. Turner, felt that
marijuana use was linked to anti-authority behavior and insisted pot could
turn young men into homosexuals.

As marijuana use declined among middle-class families, elected officials
saw little political gain in opposing the tough drug laws. Many saw strong
opposition to marijuana as an easy way to distance themselves from the
excesses of the hippie counterculture.

Today, it is largely poor people and minority offenders who are imprisoned
for marijuana offenses. Pot smokers can now lose their cars, houses, jobs,
student loans and food stamps after getting busted.

The nation's harsh marijuana policy increasingly isolates Washington from
many of its allies. In February, the Justice Department staged a
nationwide roundup of bong and roach clip manufacturers. Even as the
nation feared seemingly imminent attacks by Al Qaeda, an inchoate danger,
Attorney General Ashcroft announced the success of "Operation Pipe Dream."
Among those arrested was Tommy Chong, who now manufactures a line of bongs.

The symbolism could hardly have been more fitting. Mr. Chong recently
plead guilty to a federal conspiracy charge and could face a prison
sentence of five years.