THE POT DEBATE TAKES CENTRE STAGE

The senators who have favoured more relaxed marijuana laws may have blown
their chances of arguing for them

Lead Editorial charlottetown

Canada's senators have certainly pushed the debate about marijuana laws
into the spotlight. The question is whether their call for outright
legalization pushes the issue so far that more modest progress on drug laws
will be impossible.

This week a committee chaired by Senator Pierre Claude Nolin brought in a
600-page report that compared marijuana use to alcohol consumption and
proposed that marijuana be treated like alcohol ? as a controlled but legal
substance.

Senator Nolin's report follows up on government's apparent new comfort with
cannabis. For months, Health Canada has been examining whether marijuana
could be made available for medical uses. More recently, Justice Minister
Martin Cauchon has speculated that government could be open to
decriminalization ? not actually making pot use legal, but treating
possession as a minor offence that doesn't carry a criminal record.

The proposal from the Senate goes well beyond those measures, although they
could not be adopted without controversy.

What the senators have proposed is a shift that would completely invert
Canadian drug policy. What is contraband on one day would be an endorsed
consumer product in the next, conceivably to be federally regulated or even
sold with a government tax stamp.

That's not a policy shift that Canadians are likely to accept.

It could be argued that a majority of Canadians would accept medical
marijuana if it could be shown to give users a medical benefit. It could
also be argued that many Canadians would agree with the idea that simply
possessing marijuana is not a sufficiently destructive act to justify
giving the possessor a permanent criminal record.

But those steps, which have not been taken, would still be a long way from
endorsement of marijuana as a consumer product.

Marijuana may be accepted as a medical aid. It may be accepted as a minor
legal infraction. But Canadians have given no sign that they are ready for
government-sanctioned pot.

The senators of the Nolin committee clearly favour relaxed marijuana laws
but they have blown the chance to argue for them. Legalization, if it ever
comes, will only come after a period of normalization where marijuana is
permitted in very specific circumstances.

By arguing for a radical change that is certain to face public rejection,
senators have undermined the arguments for more modest steps like
decriminalization.