BONG HITS ANYONE?

OTTAWA (CUP)-Canadian adults may soon be legally entitled to "blaze,"
"smoke up" or "hit up the phat chronic" if a report tabled by the Senate of
Canada is accepted and passed into law.

The report, released by the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs,
bluntly calls for the legalization of marijuana.

"Judges, lawyers, college students, brain surgeons, everyone smokes
marijuana," said Senator and committee member Tommy Banks. "Putting someone
in jail for simply having a joint in their pocket is wrong."

The report has triggered intense debate and staunch criticism from many MPs.

"It's plain absurd," said Randy White, Canadian Alliance MP and
vice-president of the House of Commons Committee on the Non-Medical Use of
Drugs. "Two of the 11 findings were irresponsible. It's a quantum leap from
where we are today. We would be the only country to do this [...] and that
should tell you something."

The 600-page report concludes that "only behaviour causing demonstrable
harm to others should be prohibited: illegal trafficking, selling to young
people under the age of sixteen and impaired driving."

"Penalties for trafficking should skyrocket," Banks said. "[You should] be
put in jail and throw away the key."

The report also recommends amnesty for "any person convicted of possession
of cannabis under current or past legislation."

"Why was marijuana ever criminalized?" asked Banks about the 1923 Opium and
Drug act, which criminalized cannabis.

"In retrospect, there was no rational reason for criminalizing it in the
first place," he added, admitting to having smoked marijuana once at a jazz
concert in 1957.

White feels the committee is condoning the use of marijuana.

"While we spend hundreds of millions of dollars saying not to smoke, here
is a committee saying outright, it's okay to smoke marijuana," he said.

Banks vehemently disagrees with this position.

"Nobody is encouraging use [of] drugs," he said. "Drugs are bad and don't
do you any good. [But] putting morality aside, prohibition doesn't work."

"You're living in some other place if you think prohibition laws are
keeping drugs away," Banks said.

The Marijuana Party, whose mandate is to demonstrate the social advantages
to ending cannabis prohibition, welcomes the news.

"I'm happy," said Marc-Boris St-Maurice, leader of the Marijuana Party.
"[I'm] impressed with how far they [Senate Committee] went. They used
explicit, strong words."

"Senators have given the Marijuana Party our platform for the next
election," St-Maurice added.

The report recommends that the Marijuana Medical Access regulations be changed.

"Present medicinal marijuana provisions are not effective and must be
revised to provide greater access for those in need," the report observed.

Banks, who supports marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is optimistic
about seeing the report become a reality.

"This has to be dealt with at all orders of government. It can't be done
with only one order," he said, adding that marijuana should be controlled
by the provinces.

"Fairly soon we'll see decriminalization," he said.

White, on the other hand, believes we'll never see marijuana legalized.

"It's not going to happen," he said. "It's [report] not going to get out of
there [House of Commons], believe me."