TRUSTEES URGE ANTI-POT STAND

Legal Marijuana Opposed

Some say it can free your mind -- but pot does nothing to help your brain,
according to one Winnipeg school division.

The St. James-Assiniboia School Division is urging all Manitoba school
trustees to support a resolution calling on their national body to oppose
the decriminalization of marijuana.

"If there was significant liberalization, it might make things more
difficult for students in school," said Bruce Alexander, chair of the St.
James-Assiniboia board of trustees. "It occasionally leads to other
substances that can be much worse for young people."

St. James-Assiniboia trustees last month unanimously passed a resolution
asking the Canadian School Board Association to lobby Ottawa to maintain
existing marijuana laws. They also want Ottawa to "reject any proposed
relaxation" of the laws.

Before moving to the national stage, the resolution must be accepted by a
majority of the province's elected school officials at the Manitoba
Association of School Trustees' March 14 annual general meeting.

"It's their opinion (decriminalization) would make access to the drug
easier, and they just don't agree with that," St. James-Assiniboia
superintendent Ron Weston said of the trustees' resolution.

Alexander said his board was spurred into action after two separate cases
dealing with marijuana possession were tossed out of Ontario courts last
month. Both examples were widely taken as signs that Canada's pot laws were
beginning to crumble.

A House of Commons committee has recommended that possession of 30 grams of
pot should result in nothing more than a ticket and no criminal record.
Thirty grams, about one ounce, of pot can produce about 50 joints.

READY TO ROLL

Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said he's ready to roll this
year on the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use.

Carolyn Duhamel, executive director of MAST, said no other Manitoba school
division has in recent memory brought forward a resolution dealing with pot.

"There's some pretty strongly divergent views on this particular issue,"
Duhamel said. "So it will probably make for some interesting discussion."

Drug use is not a big problem in St. James-Assiniboia, Weston said.