MARIJUANA SHOULDN'T BE LEGAL, COPS INSIST

Ottawa - A group representing Canadian municipal police authorities urged
the federal government to implement a national drug strategy Saturday as it
denounced the legalization of illicit drugs, including marijuana.

"This resolution, which has been endorsed by all three of the country's
national policing advocates - the boards, the officers and the chiefs - we
believe will send a clear message to our nation's leaders," Herb Kreling,
president of the Canadian Association of Police Boards, told a news
conference. The association, which represents over 50 municipal police
boards and commissions across Canada, passed the resolution during its
annual general meeting.

Kreling says the resolution also has the support of the Canadian
Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association. He
added that previous proposals on child pornography and organized crime have
ended up enshrined in federal legislation.

Both Justice Minister Martin Cauchon and Solicitor General Lawrence
MacAulay have been told of the decisions reached during the two-day
conference, Kreling said.

MacAulay attended the conference on Friday and will meet again with the
association to discuss national policing issues.

"We gave the minister the opportunity (Friday) to bring his comments to
us," Kreling said.

"We did not push him for an immediate response. We will be meeting with the
minister more formally in about six months' time and, at that time, we'll
be looking for a more formal response."

Kreling also said he is expecting to meet informally with Cauchon sometime
in the fall.

The association is also asking MacAulay for an external review of a
Correctional Services of Canada policy which allows maximum-security
prisoners to be upgraded to lower security facilities.

The "JoeMac" resolution was named after Sudbury police Const. Joe
MacDonald, who was shot to death in 1993.

Two men, Clinton Suzack and Peter Pennett, were convicted in the shooting
and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. But
Suzack was later transferred to a medium security prison in B.C., a
facility where inmates can play golf and watch whales off the coast of
Vancouver Island.