LAWMAKERS, POLICE FACE NEW CHALLENGES AS MARIJUANA MARCHES TOWARD MAINSTREAM

TORONTO - For the young owner of a hip new specialty shop, it's a special
feeling when someone's mom or dad comes in to do a little last-minute
Christmas shopping for the kids.

But when the shop in question is the Friendly Stranger, a boutique that
specializes in pipes, papers and other pot-smoking paraphernalia, it can
only mean one thing: the times, they are a-changin' once again.

"They come in, and they're like, 'He wanted this, this, and this; I have no
idea what this is, but I know it's only for cannabis, so it's OK,' " Robin
Ellins, founder of the Friendly Stranger, said with a chuckle.

"It's been a big change for us to see that happening over the years."

Canada, it seems, is in the grips of a 21st-century bout of reefer madness.

Seriously ill people who qualify can get permission from Ottawa to smoke
pot to ease their symptoms; an Ontario judge has even ordered the federal
government to provide them with the drug.

That ruling last month widened a legal loophole that has hamstrung the laws
governing possession of small quantities of marijuana. For now, judges
won't convict in such cases, even if those charged are willing to plead guilty.

And while Ottawa is appealing the ruling, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon
has said he wants to relax Canada's possession laws, a move that recent
opinion polls suggest has a lot of public support.

It's all very exciting for lawyer and cannabis crusader Alan Young, who
represented participants in Canada's medical-marijuana program during their
successful court challenge late last year.

Such a challenge never would have succeeded 10 years ago, he said.

"Something changed in the 1990s," said Young. "What changed, I don't know.
But something definitely did."

Statistics from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto
suggest that the number of Canadians who smoke pot is on the rise,
especially among teenagers.

In 2001, 11.2 per cent of Canadian adults surveyed by the Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health reported using marijuana in the past 12 months,
compared with 8.6 per cent in 1998.

Among men, 15.4 per cent said they'd used pot during the past year,
compared with 11.4 per cent in 1994; consumption rates for women were
largely steady at 7.3 per cent in 2001.

Canadians aged 18 to 29 were smoking more as well -26.8 per cent compared
with 18.3 per cent in 1996 - as were 30 to 49 year olds, who reported a
15.8 per cent consumption rate in 2001, compared with 11.3 per cent in 1996.

For teens, the numbers are even more striking.

A CAMH study of Ontario adolescents found that 29.8 per cent of respondents
in 2001 reported consuming pot during the past year, compared with a scant
12.7 per cent in 1993.

Pot even outpaced tobacco, which was used by just 23.6 per cent of the
respondents, who were from grades 7 to 12. More boys than girls - 33.7 per
cent versus 26 per cent - reported using pot in the last year.

In 2001, respondents who reported selling cannabis set an all-time high of
8.3 per cent, compared with just three per cent in 1991.

"I think people are a little bit more open, and in their own little way,
trying to push the envelope a little bit," Ellins said.

"Why should someone be able to walk down the street smoking a cigarette if
they can't walk down the street smoking a joint? The first one is deadly,
and the second one's not."

So-called marijuana "grow houses" have become commonplace. Police raid them
on a regular basis, often in quiet, suburban neighbourhoods where
large-scale drug traffickers aren't supposed to be common.

On Wednesday, police busted two home grow operations next door to each
other along with a third on a nearby street in the suburb of Markham, north
of Toronto.

In 1991, there were just over 33,000 cannabis-related offences -
possession, trafficking, importation and production - committed in Canada,
according to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

In 2001, that number had almost doubled to 70,624.

Young said he's still skeptical of Ottawa's sincerity about
decriminalization, which would see possession of 30 grams or less of pot
become a regulatory offence that doesn't lead to a criminal record.

Eventually, governments will come to realize that marijuana has as much
revenue-generating potential as society's other addictions, most notably
alcohol and gambling, Young said.

"Suddenly, the government will be telling you how benign it is."

Not so fast, warned Dr. Harold Kalant, a professor emeritus of pharmacology
at the University of Toronto and a world-renowned expert on addiction research.

Anything that has mind-altering effects clearly has the potential to do
serious damage, said Kalant. Like alcohol, it just depends on who uses it,
how they use it and how much they consume.

"People have read and heard so often that cannabis is a safe drug that they
don't realize that any drug that is able to do anything is able to do harm
as well," Kalant said.

"It's a question of how much you have to use to run into harmful effects."

Studies around the world have linked marijuana use to schizophrenia,
lowered IQs and cancer, among other things, said Kalant.

And while no one's ever died of an overdose of cannabis, there's a growing
body of evidence to suggest that it's been playing a major role in fatal
car crashes for years.

"There's no question that it has been shown to impair driving ability."

Which is why police forces across Canada are training select officers to
spot motorists who might be driving under the influence of marijuana, a
drug that's not as easily detected in a spot check as alcohol.

Marijuana's not the harmless herb it might have been 20 years ago, said
Toronto police deputy chief Mike Boyd, also chairman of the drug abuse
committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

"Marijuana today is up to 500 per cent stronger than the marijuana that
most moms and dads across the country remember from the late 1960s and
early 1970s," Boyd said.

Parents, he said, "are completely blown away when they hear that. They have
no idea."

Technology that would allow police to identify pot-smoking motorists the
way breathalyser equipment can isolate a drunk driver is still in its
infancy, Boyd said. In the meantime, police need to take action, he said.

"There's a recognition that there are more people involved in drug-impaired
driving than there was; there's an escalating trend there."

All the recent talk about legalization, decriminalization and marijuana's
virtues as medical therapy haven't helped matters either, said Boyd.

"It's sending the unintended message - or maybe it's the intended message -
that cannabis is a benign drug," he said.

"All of the talk . . . is sending a very confusing message to Canadians in
general and young people in particular."

Boyd, who's also the chairman of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of
Police's drug abuse committee, is pushing provinces to introduce new laws
to help police manage issues of drug abuse behind the wheel.

Current laws allow police to use sobriety tests to examine a motorist's
motor skills when they suspect alcohol impairment - walking a straight line
or touching one's nose, for instance.

"We need to change the legislation in order to enable police officers to
make those demands when they reasonably suspect a person is under the
influence of or impaired by drugs," Boyd said.

"Some federal help would be beneficial there."

Boyd said he also wants the provinces to introduce legislation allowing
police to temporarily suspend driver's licences and impound vehicles in the
interest of public safety when drug impairment is suspected.

Back at the Friendly Stranger, Ellins has recently hired a staff member in
her 50s to handle the older folks who are coming in with more regularity.

Pinstriped executive types are more common these days, too, he said.

Customers have to be 19 or over, Ellins added, and those who aren't are
encouraged to bring a parent or to take literature home for them to look over.

"If somebody comes in who's 17 or 18 and takes our information, goes home,
puts it on the coffee table and starts that conversation with the family at
home . . . this issue will get resolved," he said.

"It's the parents and the grandparents who vote."