CANADA PLANS TO CUT POT USE BY CUTTING PENALTIES

OTTAWA - It may sound counterintuitive, but Canadian Justice Minister
Martin Cauchon believes that by decriminalizing the possession of small
amounts of marijuana he will actually cut its use.

Cauchon told Reuters in an interview on Friday that current criminal
sanctions are being applied so rarely and unevenly that reducing the
penalties and then enforcing them should result in a more effective deterrent.

"The system is broken. It doesn't work. We have to fix it and we have to be
realistic in fixing it," Cauchon said.

"It's 2003 and we realize that the existing legislation hasn't been
effective, and more and more people are using cannabis."

Despite concerns expressed by the Bush administration, the Canadian
government is looking at changing criminal penalties for marijuana
possession, possibly to a system in which users would just get a ticket.

Cauchon stresses that marijuana would remain illegal, and that criminal
penalties would continue to apply to possession of larger amounts and to
traffickers.

He has pledged to deliver legislation to Parliament by mid June, though it
was quite possible it would be introduced as early as next week.

"We're not doing that do be soft on drugs, but to be more efficient, more
effective," said the minister, who comes from Quebec, one of Canada's most
liberal provinces.

"It is in order to make sure that we will send a strong message to the
effect that the use of drugs -- to be more precise, we're talking about
cannabis -- in Canada is illegal and harmful as well for our society."

Currently about 100,000 of Canada's 30 million people use pot on a daily
basis, he said.

"We don't really enforce the existing legislation. When we do enforce the
legislation we don't do it on a uniform basis across Canada," he said.

"For example, if you get caught with 5 or 10 grams (a fraction of an ounce)
in downtown Toronto, you're probably going to get nothing but a verbal
warning," he added.

"If you get caught in a small village somewhere in Canada, probably there's
a chance that you'll be charged and tried, with a summary conviction, and
end up with a criminal judgment against you."

A House of Commons committee in December recommended ending criminal
penalties for people cultivating or possessing amounts less than 30 grams
(one ounce), and it took issue with the idea that marijuana is a gateway to
harder drugs.

But that idea is precisely the position of the Bush administration, which
has warned of a possible clampdown at the border with Canada if possession
is decriminalized, even if that means world's richest trading relationship
suffers as a result.

Cauchon described the plan briefly to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
this week at a Paris meeting of justice ministers of the Group of Eight
leading industrialized nations.

Asked what Ashcroft's reaction was, Cauchon said: "It was OK. It was what
you would expect."

Cauchon said he would not expect a U.S. backlash.

"Not at all, because I believe that with that new policy we will be going
in the right direction," he said.