THE SMOKE IS CLEARING

The time has come to get off the pot and decriminalize pot. At last, it
looks as though the federal government is going to do something right for a
change and implement some of the recommendations released Thursday in the
Commons report of the Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs.

For too long in this country, the penalties for the possession of small
amounts of marijuana have been out of proportion to marijuana's negative
impacts and public opinion.

What that has meant is all of us -- even the majority of Canadians who do
not smoke cannabis -- have been paying big time for a policy that is out of
step with reality and common sense.

Scarce police and court resources have been squandered on busting and
prosecuting weekend tokers while more serious crimes go uninvestigated and
unprosecuted.

Every year, some 20,000 Canadians are convicted for possession or
cultivation of marijuana, which clogs up our courts and poses the risk of
more serious cases being thrown out of court because of unreasonable delays.

But even as this very reasonable report was being released, U.S. drug czar
John Walters started spouting alarmist rhetoric and even hinted that if the
recommendations become law, tighter border controls to "protect American
citizens" will be put into place.

Perhaps it's time the U.S. government -- so insistent that it is a
government "of the people and for the people" -- starts paying attention to
those people and start relenting in its draconian, punitive and costly
battle with marijuana -- a relatively benign recreational drug.

In a CNN/Time poll released last month, fully 80% of Americans think adults
should be able to use marijuana legally for medical purposes.

Fully 47% say they have tried marijuana at least once and 72% say people
arrested for possessing small amounts of marijuana should be fined, not jailed.

In a poll conducted a couple of years ago, fully four out of every five
Canadians are in favour of decriminalizing the possession of marijuana.

Another positive spinoff from this new law will hopefully be that the
production of hemp -- once the largest cash crop in Canada prior to the
First World War -- will be allowed to occur and as a result we can save
more of our forests from needless destruction for production of paper.

We are also in favour of the report's recommendation to educate Canadians
about risks associated with marijuana -- including that it is as hard on
the lungs as cigarettes.

Despite what critics say, we do not believe that fining people instead of
incarcerating them will increase cannabis use in Canada. What it will do,
however, is increase the time our police and courts will have to go after
real criminals.

The time for talk is over. The blue smoke has cleared. It's time to
decriminalize pot. It's simply the right thing to do -- in every sense of
the word.