LEGAL MARIJUANA IN CANADA?

If international relations were a movie, Canada would be one of those
demure heroines who remains in the background for most of the film but
surprises the audience at a pivotal moment by standing up to -- or ignoring
- -- the leading man.

It's as if we have to be reminded now and then that our closest neighbor is
a nation unto itself. Our economic fates may be joined at the hip, and
Michiganders may continue to find Ontario less exotic or threatening than
Florida, Texas or (God knows) California.

Back to Toronto

But that sovereign state thing never really goes away. And now -- just when
you thought it was safe to go back to Toronto -- our licentious friends to
the north are flexing their independence again.

Sunday's Toronto Globe and Mail reported that the Canadian parliament may
take up legislation decriminalizing possession of marijuana in amounts
below 15 grams - - the quantity found in about 20 cigarettes -- as soon as
tomorrow. If it's adopted, a person caught with a few joints would escape
with a ticket and a small fine.

Drivers, stop your engines!

The Bush administration -- which admirably resisted international hysteria
over Ontario's recent SARS outbreak -- has displayed markedly less
composure in the face of decriminalized pot.

John Walters, the White House drug czar, has stumped Canada from the
Atlantic provinces to Vancouver, warning about the proposal's impact on
Canadian youth and, more ominously, cross-border trade.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says that relaxation of Canada's
cannabis law would force customs officials here to increase scrutiny of
vehicles entering Detroit, increasing costly delays at the busiest truck
crossing in North America.

Border Security

So let me get this straight: Right now, with the nation's foreign and
domestic policymakers grimly focused on preventing the next 9/11 and
security officials fretting about the ease with which terrorists might
smuggle biological or chemical weapons into this country, we're at one
level of border security. But the prospect of tourists slipping across the
border with a few joints in their toilet kits means that we may have to
kick it up a notch?

Am I missing something? When was the last time a group of stoners burned
down anything bigger than their own campsite?

Drug-enforcement officials worry that relaxing penalties for marijuana use
in Canada will embolden traffickers to set up more smuggling operations
near the U.S. border. They also worry that American teens in border states
will sneak into the Canadian provinces to get high.

To Canadians, of course, this is the quintessence of Yankee arrogance:
Expecting trade threats and Canadian police to do the work of negligent
American parents. (It's 10 o'clock: Do you know what country your child is in?)

Trade Partners

I suspect that the DEA is right, to a point. Decriminalizing Canadian pot
likely will lead to greater use in the United States. But when push comes
to shove, the commercial realists in the Bush administration won't let the
bluenoses threaten a $62 billion trading relationship.

The likelier long-term consequence is that the United States will
eventually follow Canada and most of the European community in the
direction of decriminalization. And you know where that leads.

Just watch: In 10 years, we'll be using reefer tax revenues to pay for MEAP
scholarships.