DEBATE LIGHTS UP OVER POT LEGALIZATION

"Hi. My Name Is Dennis And I Smoke Marijuana."

The admissions were as thick as the pot smoke in a Cheech and Chong flick
at last night's debate on the decriminalization of marijuana, though the
agreement on what should happen with the plant's legal status wasn't as strong.

Some disagreed about whether marijuana is even a drug as a couple argued
it's simply an herb. Others disagreed about it being labelled a "gateway
drug" while others said they thought it leads to harder drug use.

Several people on the panel and in the audience admitted to doing more than
just inhaling -- everything from growing marijuana, to selling it and other
drugs to crimes committed in search of drugs -- regardless of one of
Whitehorse's most recognizable, though out-of-uniform, Mounties lounging on
a table in the back of the room.

The public debate, attended by about 30 people, was held as part of
National Addictions Awareness Week.

Dennis, a 42-year-old who said he's been smoking weed for 26 years, argued
it's no longer acceptable for pot smokers to run the risk every day of
having their lives interrupted by Draconian laws put in place in the early
20th century -- laws that simply don't reflect life today, he said.

In early September, a Canadian Senate report argued for legalizing
marijuana use for people over the age of 16, arguing that marijuana was not
a so-called gateway drug - one that leads to the use of stronger narcotics
- -- and is less dangerous than alcohol. More than 20,000 people a year are
arrested for using marijuana in Canada, but the committee said the
continued illegality of the drug was having no effect at all.

Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said last July he was considering whether
to decriminalize marijuana, but the Senate's special committee on illegal
drugs urged him to go much further.

Decriminalization for possession of marijuana would mean anyone caught with
it would receive a fine much like a traffic ticket, and wouldn't get a
criminal record. Instead, the Senate panel suggested Parliament legalize
marijuana and regulate and sell it much like alcohol.

Debate panel member Mike Cozens, a local defence lawyer about to switch to
the Crown prosecution side in the New Year, said he agreed with the Senate
report that merely decriminalizing marijuana deprives the government of the
ability to regulate and tax it. By decriminalizing but keeping it illegal,
we're telling kids pot's not that bad, but they're dealing with the same
criminal element to buy, Cozens argued.

He said by legalizing marijuana, it could be regulated and taxed, and that
money could be used to go after those selling hard drugs. Many in the
audience argued marijuana isn't addictive like alcohol and cigarettes.

Cozens argued the "gateway drug" idea is outdated, and that it hasn't been
addressed by strong scientific research.

He and others noted, however, that what pot does is pull people wanting to
buy it into an illegal subculture.

While he said he could see arguments for both sides, the lawyer said Canada
needs to come up with a consistent philosophy based on sound research --
and stick to it.

"I've never had to defend clients who've beaten the crap out of someone
because they were stoned," said Cozens, noting he's defended people who've
done just that when they'd been drinking booze.

Several people in the audience questioned why marijuana, which tends to
make people mellow and relaxed, was made illegal over alcohol, which is one
root of most of the Yukon's crime.

General practitioner Dr. Graham Henderson, who recently finished a six-year
stint working at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, said marijuana is on
the low end of the scale of legal and illegal drugs in terms of physical harm.

"In a nutshell, I don't think it's all that harmful," he said. However, he
listed some of the effects of marijuana, which include short-term memory
loss -- affecting learning -- and damage to neuro transmitters in the brain.

THC, the active agent in marijuana, attaches itself to fatty tissues in the
body, he said, noting it can stay in the brain's fatty tissues for up to 40
days.

The physical fact of smoking pot is quite dangerous though, he said, noting
the risk of lung cancer rises for smokers. From what he's learned,
marijuana hasn't been proved to be addictive, but it's more likely that
some people are just more susceptible.

"Addicts are probably born, not made," he said. "I don't consider it very
high up in the causing-damage department."

He said while he doesn't believe smoking marijuana is worth a criminal
record, leaving it in the decriminalization realm leaves the pushers and
violent subculture where it is.

Billy Bromell, a panel member and a Yukon College student who argued for
making marijuana legal, noted that every society has had drug use and that
the 1920s-decision to make it illegal was simply a political one made by
the moral majority.

"Nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot put in my body,"
Bromell said.

"People do things to other people's bodies when they're on crack cocaine,"
replied Cozens. "We don't want a society where kids think crack cocaine is
fine, where kids think smoking marijuana while they're at school is fine."

Laws are made to define the sort of society we want to create, he said.

One woman who said she's a counsellor with youth vehemently opposed
decriminalization or legalization of marijuana after the years of trouble
she's seen her charges get into with the drug. They don't do as well in
school and it affects their relationships with peers, she said.

Their still-growing bodies are affected as well, the woman said.

The people into legalizing marijuana are doing it for their own
self-interest, she said.

"It's for their own personal enjoyment and so they won't get busted," she
said. "They're not looking at the greater good."

Even those in the audience who argued for legalizing all drugs, legalizing
only marijuana or decriminalizing the drug all agreed it's not something
kids should be using.

"It's a social problem, not a legal problem," said one young man. "You
don't put people in jail; you educate them. I don't think, though, you
should be smoking pot when you're 14. You should be out doing stuff,
playing sports, learning things."

Matthew Cardinal, a student and recovering cocaine addict who's used and
sold numerous kinds of drugs, said illegal drug traffickers don't care
about drug users' safety. They're not prescribing appropriate daily doses
- -- all they care about is money, he said.

For sellers, it's not a movement to smoke pot legally, it's a movement to
make money he said.

"There are no rules that actually exist in that subculture."