WINDSOR COULD BE SPOT FOR LEGAL POT

Canadian Plan Would Treat It Much Like Beer

Imagine Windsor -- which already attracts hordes of Michiganders with its
naked dance bars, legalized escorts and alcohol for 19-year-olds -- with
Amsterdam-style legalized pot.

Months after a top Canadian official recommended decriminalizing marijuana,
a Senate panel recommended a far more sweeping change this week --
legalizing sales and use of marijuana and hashish to anyone over 16 and
allowing Canadians to grow marijuana for their personal use.

In a 600-page report released Wednesday, the Senate panel also recommended
the government regulate sales and production of the drug, much as it does
cigarettes and beer, and that it license distributors, tax the product and
use some of the proceeds to pay for research on health effects, prevention
and treatment.

The Canadian government is expected to decide on the issue next year.

Critics of legalization said the proposal could have widespread
ramifications for the United States. Some U.S. politicians already are
unhappy about the amount of Canadian-grown marijuana crossing the border.
They said if Canada legalizes marijuana, the United States could be forced
to clamp down on cross-border traffic.

U.S. antidrug groups joined in, saying legalization in Canada could increase
access to illegal drugs in the United States.

Windsor has had a thriving downtown entertainment district since the early
1980s, partly by offering things that are banned in Michigan, like women and
men dancing completely naked and municipally regulated escort services,
which many say amount to legalized prostitution.

Although local law enforcement agencies ranging from the Detroit division of
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to the Farmington Hills Police
Department had not heard of the Canadian panel's recommendation on Thursday,
at least one police official was quick to oppose the move.

"We have a serious drug problem that has proliferated over the last three
decades, and legalized marijuana use is not the solution to the epidemic of
drug abuse," Farmington Hills Police Chief Bill Dwyer said. Dwyer is the
immediate past president of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police.

"I could perceive that people would travel from the United States to use
marijuana in the Canada," Dwyer added.

Windsor officials could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based organization that advocates
marijuana legalization, dismissed suggestions that marijuana deregulation
will lead to moral degeneration.

"I think that the notion that the society will develop moral turpitude is a
pretty clear demonstration of their proprietary interests in the status
quo," he said.

The Senate panel recommendation comes as Canada grapples with what to do
about increased use of marijuana and the organized crime groups that control
Canada's multibillion-dollar pot industry. Illegal marijuana growing is a
major industry in the western province of British Columbia, with much of the
product exported to the United States.

In July, Canadian Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said he was considering
whether to decriminalize marijuana, making possession punishable with a fine
instead of a criminal record.

But the Senate's special panel on illegal drugs urged Cauchon to go much
further. The Senate is Canada's unelected upper house of Parliament.

"Essentially the committee recommends from now on that marijuana be
legalized and available for restricted use, so Canadians can choose whether
to consume it or not," said the committee chairman, Sen. Pierre Claude
Nolin.

Nolin said it was clear that prohibition was "a cop-out" that would never be
effective. More than 20,000 people a year are arrested in Canada for using
marijuana, but the committee said the continued criminalization of the drug
was having no effect.

"In a free society such as ours, it is up to each person to decide whether
they want to use cannabis or not," Nolin said. "We do not want to encourage
this consumption any more than we encourage the consumption of alcohol."

Nolin said the panel concluded no evidence existed that marijuana was a
so-called gateway drug -- one that leads to the use of harder drugs such as
cocaine and heroin.

"Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially
less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but
as a social and public health issue," he said.

Sen. Colin Kenny of the Liberal Party said the five-volume report, which the
committee worked on for two years, had the committee's unanimous support.

The United States disputed the report's findings that marijuana is less
harmful than alcohol. The White House said easy availability would increase
addiction, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported Thursday in Toronto.

"We know that marijuana is a harmful drug, particularly for young people,"
said John Walters, director of the U.S. National Drug Control Policy, in the
statement. "We also know that if you make it more available, you'll get more
marijuana use."