LIGHT UP, INHALE, DECRIMINALIZE

Well, it's a start. Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon didn't just
confirm that he's thinking of decriminalizing simple possession of
marijuana. He actually confessed he'd smoked the stuff -- and made no
excuses, no apologies, no silly evasions a la Bill Clinton. Remember? "I
didn't inhale." (He didn't have sex with "that woman," either.)

Mr. Cauchon, when asked, took it for granted that he had tried pot. "Yes,
of course. I'm 39 years old . . ."

Well, I'm more than 39 and I've tried pot, and so has almost everyone I
know. It would help to put the debate in context if many more people from
all walks of life -- responsible citizens, including judges and clergymen
- -- were to acknowledge publicly that they had smoked pot without going on
to inject heroin, and their lives would have been damaged had they been
caught and convicted.

The Justice Minister floated a trial balloon, and now Ottawa will be on the
watch for the reaction. If the police have their way with public opinion
and ring the alarm with grotesque misinformation, as did the Canadian
Police Association last year when it appeared before the Senate committee
on illegal drugs, the Liberals will scurry for cover.

The police claimed, for example, that "violent crime in Holland is the
highest in Europe and . . . the murder rate in Holland was three times that
of the United States." The Netherlands was singled out as a horrible
example of what could happen in Canada because people can smoke pot in
cafes there or take home as much as five grams without being molested.

But, in fact, statistics published by the United Nations for 1998 showed
that the male murder rate per 100,000 was 15.20 in the United States, 2.30
in Canada and only 1.81 in the Netherlands. What had the police been smoking?

In its report for 2000, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction, an agency of the European Union, found the highest rates of
problem drug use in Spain, Italy, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, and
the lowest rates in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden -- and the
Netherlands.

If, on the other hand, public opinion shifts toward the view of the
Canadian Medical Association Journal that it is unacceptable that 1.5
million Canadians be stigmatized with a criminal record for possession of
cannabis, the government will prove its readiness for reform when the
Senate and Commons committees, each studying the question, report later
this year.

Initial reaction in Canada's newspapers is encouraging. On Tuesday, the
Montreal Gazette's lead editorial was headlined "Decriminalize it." Last
Friday, Quebec City's Le Soleil greeted news that the United Kingdom would
no longer impose jail sentences with a hope: "The time has come for Canada
to modernize its approach to the use of soft drugs."

Yesterday, The Globe and Mail came out editorially for decriminalizing
possession of pot, as did Montreal's Le Devoir, the Calgary Herald and the
Ottawa Citizen, which exclaimed: "Go for it, Mr. Cauchon. It won't be just
snowboarders who thank you."

The Edmonton Journal took a wait-and-see posture, but acknowledged: "In
fact, experience in places as different as Australia and Switzerland show
no evidence the use of cannabis rises when taken from the criminal code."

In the movie Traffic,the character played by Michael Douglas, placed in
charge of enforcing U.S. drug laws, finally comes to realize that the war
on drugs is a war against his and our children.

Will common sense and justice prevail in Canada?