CANADA CONSIDERS LOOSER POT LAWS, TO DISMAY OF U.S.

Washington Says Border May Be Tightened

OTTAWA - Canada's plan to decriminalize marijuana, making possession of the
country's potent drug no more serious than a traffic ticket, has the Bush
administration fuming.

The view from Washington is that the mellowing of Canadian drug law will
result in even more smuggled bales of "B.C. Bud," "Quebec Gold," and
"Winnipeg Wheelchair" -- the last so named because of its supposedly
disabling effect on users -- reaching American pot smokers.

For years, Canadian courts, if not police, have taken a far more lax
attitude toward marijuana than do most jurisdictions in the United States.
Such a laissez-faire approach, according to law enforcement officials on
both sides of the border, has enabled biker gangs and Asian organized-crime
groups to make Canada a powerhouse of hydroponic pot production, with
thousands of high-tech, indoor-growing operations in British Columbia,
Manitoba and Quebec yielding hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the
drug.

"Most of it is going straight to the U.S. market," said a senior drug
investigator with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, requesting anonymity.
That southward flow of Canadian cannabis explains why the proposed easing
of the marijuana law is fast becoming a serious source of political friction.

In terms of tonnage, Canada accounts for only a small share of the
marijuana smuggled into the United States. But in terms of value, some
drug-enforcement officials believe Canadian pot has surpassed Mexico's and
Colombia's among U.S. consumers because its high levels of
tetrahydrocannabinol -- THC, the active ingredient in marijuana -- command
much higher prices. In U.S. cities, high-grade Canadian marijuana fetches
more than $5,000 a pound, drug agencies report.

Last week, Prime Minister Jean Chretien surprised the United States by
announcing that he plans to put a bill before Parliament that will make
possession and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana a non-criminal
offense. The aim, he said, is not to legalize pot but to ensure that casual
users do not end up with criminal records if caught with a few joints in
their pockets or a few plants under basement grow-lights.

Public-opinion polls show a majority of Canadians support decriminalization
of marijuana, while 47 percent endorse outright legalization.

Countries such as Britain and Australia also have taken steps to remove
criminal penalties for so-called personal marijuana use. But Britain and
Australia do not share a 5,525-mile border with a superpower whose official
drug policy is "zero tolerance." Within hours of Chretien's pledge,
Washington was voicing displeasure and hinting at tighter borders.

"You expect your friends to stop the movement of poison toward your
neighborhood," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy, told Canadian journalists. "We have to be concerned
about American citizens. . . . When you make the penalties minimal, you get
more drug production, you get more drug crime."

David Murray, special assistant to President Bush's drug czar, flew to
Vancouver and pronounced Chretien's decriminalization initiative "a matter
we look upon with some concern and some regret."

Saying the United States already is fighting a "flood of illicit
substances" from Canada, Murray warned that if the Chretien government
loosens penalties on marijuana, it may face tighter border security to
combat drug trafficking. Such a crackdown would harm the
billion-dollar-a-day trade ties between the two neighbors, with Canadian
exporters -- economically dependent on the United States -- taking a
painful hit.

Canadian leaders say removing criminal sanctions against people caught with
1.1 ounces or less of marijuana will allow police to concentrate on
large-scale dealers and smugglers.