MARIJUANA DEBATE RAGES ON IN OTTAWA

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
Canadian Senate is accepted and passed into law.

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

"Judges, lawyers, college students [and] 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 extensive 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 16 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," he 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-Maurie, leader of the Marijuana Party.
"[I'm] impressed with how far the 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 the government set up prevention programs and
"adopt an integrated policy on the risks and harmful effects of
psychoactive substances." It also 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 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. "The [report] is not going to get
out of there [House of Commons], believe me."