WHY WASHINGTON'S WORRIED ABOUT US

The drug problem in Canada is "out of control," according to John Walters,
director of national drug policy for the United States.

South of the border, of course, drug use is at an all-time low. Crack
addiction has vanished from the inner cities, AIDS infection rates are in
retreat and all the citizens of San Francisco have exchanged their bongs for
Bibles. Amen.

Getting harangued by an American drug czar on our nation's substance-abuse
problem feels like getting a lecture on temperance from Dennis Hopper.

But Republicans have always been impervious to irony, so let's examine the
real reasons why Walters and official Washington are tearing their hair out
over the Chretien government's modest plan to decriminalize possession of
small amounts of reefer.

We'll say it again: Ottawa is not talking legalization. They wouldn't dare.
What's being pitched here is a bill for the decriminalization of possession
of 15 grams and under, alongside an ambitious new plan to go after marijuana
grow operations and traffickers.

It's a reshuffling of policing priorities, away from the college kid
stocking up for a kegger and towards the biker gangs making millions.

Will it change anything? Probably not. Cops rarely nail anyone with simple
possession any more, and most cannabis users know their chances of actually
being caught with the stuff are vanishingly small.

Throwing more money at chasing traffickers and grow-ops might drive the
price up, but it'll scarcely put a dent in the supply if past policing
operations are any benchmark. Marijuana is simply too easy to grow.

Health Minister Anne McLellan has voiced the fear that the bill will lead to
a "spike" in consumption. The fear probably isn't well-founded; when two
jurisdictions in Australia made small-scale possession a ticketing offence
years back, they found that consumption stayed relatively flat.

"There's a growing consensus among people who study these things that
government policies aren't particularly relevant to consumption rates," said
Andrew Hathaway, a sociologist with the Centre for Addictions and Mental
Health.

"Factors like peer groups and concerns about health effects have far more to
do with whether you consume."

But with the current poisonous diplomatic climate between Canada and the
U.S., even the prospect of a meaningless change to our drug laws is enough
to cause cross-border conniptions.

Walters is threatening major slowdowns in cross-border traffic, which could
cost trucking and manufacturing companies major coin.

Small wonder, then, that the feds balked at introducing the bill this week.
Commons debate has been put off until the end of the month; the betting is
the bill might be allowed to fall off the order paper.

"This issue is running up against a diplomatic buzz-saw here," said
Christopher Sands, who studies Canada-U.S. relations for the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, a D.C.-based think-tank.

"You've got to remember that after Sept. 11, the responsibility for border
control shifted from Customs people concerned with revenue over to
law-enforcement experts. They come at the issue of drugs with a very hard
edge."

U.S. policymakers see Canada as a net exporter of high-test West Coast
hydroponic weed to their cities. They compare it to their country's
ill-fated experiment with Prohibition; everything would have gone just fine,
they imagine, if it hadn't been for those Montreal mobsters running
truckloads of Canadian Club across the Detroit River.

Every time there's been a "regulatory disconnect" between Canada and the
U.S., said Sands, it's led to a smuggling problem.

"It's a lot like the handgun issue in reverse. Your cops know most of the
handguns used in crimes in Canadian cities were smuggled in from the U.S."

But there's another factor at work. The souring of Canada-U.S. relations
that followed our no-show in Iraq has not been reversed.

In Washington, said Sands, there are politicians who'd love nothing better
than a chance to punish Canadians - through long border lineups, extensive
background checks, the denial of travel visas.

"The old special relationship with Canada is gone. The only way to get
around border problems is to have a good working relationship between the
two countries, and that just doesn't exist any more."