LAWYERS BACK SENATE POT PLAN

"Legalize it" was on the lips of Kelowna lawyers after a Senate
committee said pot smoking should be legal in Canada for anyone over
16.

Even though defence lawyers stand to lose clients if marijuana were
legalized, five selected at random said they welcome the Senate
recommendation.

"It's nice to see a common-sense, rational approach instead of the
fear-mongering we constantly see from police," said lawyer Wade Jenson.

"Some day we'll look back on the war on marijuana in the same way we
looked at (liquor) prohibition and how it fostered the criminal elements."

Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who chaired the committee, said
scientific studies found that cannabis is not addictive and has few,
if any, long-term effects. The report also concluded that the
long-held view that cannabis use leads to abuse of harder drugs such
as cocaine and heroin is wrong.

Kelowna lawyer Victor Janicki said the money police spend trying to
enforce the laws against marijuana use should go toward the fight
against harder drugs and trafficking and to treat addicts.

"It should be sold the way liquor is sold - in a government licensed
store," he said. "I've been a lawyer for 25 years. I've never run
across a situation where a man or woman high on just marijuana has
assaulted their spouse. Three quarters of assault cases are related to
alcohol or hard drugs."

The local John Howard Society, which helps criminals rehabilitate
themselves, estimates up to 80 per cent of the 300 clients it serves
each year have a substance abuse problem. Yet executive director Larry
Pearson supports legalization of marijuana.

"Marijuana isn't a drug of abuse like alcohol, cocaine or heroin," he
said. "The majority of marijuana smokers don't abuse it to the point
that it debilitates them. It's a recreational drug and the harm it
does isn't sufficient to warrant criminal prosecution."

Kelowna RCMP Supt. Don Harrison disagrees, arguing you can't make a
problem go away by legalizing it. His 30 years as a police officer
have shown him that pot use is a gateway to harder drugs.

"Those who start with marijuana sometimes go on to harder drugs," he
said. "They always say its no worse than alcohol or tobacco. Who says
those are good for us?"

The Mounties are concentrating more on pot growers and taking away the
marijuana supply than on cases of simple possession. Harrison says the
courts aren't helping.

"A guy with 400 plants who harvests four times a year earns $1.6
million in profits and gets a $5,000 fine. Come on. He's back in
business in two weeks," he said.

Smiley Nelson, Kelowna's deputy mayor and a former policeman, says
smoking marijuana can impair your driving ability like alcohol.
Lenient sentences from the courts and the paper work required to
prosecute marijuana users are discouraging police from pursuing them,
he said.

Nolin said the idea is not to encourage marijuana use, but to regulate
it, saving hundreds of millions in annual drug-enforcement costs.

Dana Larsen, leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party, said users should be
able to grow it and trade it with neighbours just as they would apples
or grapes.

"The only ones who spout the drug-war agenda in Canada are the
police," he said.