CANADIAN PRESS REVIEW

Marijuana dominated yesterday's newspapers after Prime Minister Jean
Chretien's government revealed its plans to decriminalise minor possession
of the drug

Marijuana dominated yesterday's newspapers after Prime Minister Jean
Chretien's government revealed its plans to decriminalise minor possession
of the drug. Under the plans, possession of up to 15 grams of marijuana
would be a minor offence punishable only with fines. The government's
motivation, said the Halifax Herald, was so "young people won't
automatically be saddled with criminal records that haunt them for life".

Many Canadians oppose the plan, said the Toronto Star. "But let's be frank:
Current rules aren't working ... Three million Canadians use marijuana
occasionally, so the existing laws aren't much of a deterrent." Martin
Cauchon, the justice minister, insisted that the government was not trying
to legalise the drug. Indeed, custodial sentences for growing cannabis
plants would increase from a maximum of seven years to 14, while the
penalty for trafficking would remain life imprisonment.

"Rarely have so many conflicting messages managed to find their way into a
single government initiative," said the Star. The draft legislation,
reckoned the Montreal Gazette, was "a typically Canadian compromise - a
bumpy middle course steered between opposites toward something neither side
really quite approves". That, said the Vancouver Sun, showed the
government's sensitivity "to complaints ... in the US that Canada is
relaxing its drug laws". Moreover, there is no chance the law will be
changed by the end of the year, said the Toronto Globe and Mail: "There is
too much opposition from within the Liberal party, and too little time
before Mr Chretien must leave office."

Sars and BSE also preoccupied the press. The Toronto Star carried the story
of Carol Tough, a nurse who faced a second 10-day quarantine after the city
saw a resurgence of Sars over the weekend. "She believes easing Sars
precautions in the middle of May was a mistake. 'Who dropped the ball? The
government? Which one? All of them.'"

The Globe and Mail led with the news that the Canadian government was
"looking at tighter controls on the commercial slaughter of cattle"
following last week's diagnosis of what was only Canada's second recorded
case of BSE. Claude Boissonneault of the Canadian food inspection agency
told the paper that Canada had laxer slaughter practices than Europe
because, until now, "mad cow [disease] has not been a problem in North America".