GRASS ACTION: OUR TOP COP WANTS POT POTENCY STUDIED

Edmonton's top cop says he's not surprised Canada's justice minister is
considering decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of pot.

And Chief Bob Wasylyshen told The Sun yesterday he hopes the government
examines the issue of THC levels - marijuana's active ingredient - when it
releases a Senate committee report late this summer on non-medicinal drugs
in Canada.

"Hopefully it will address this issue of high THC levels, because that's
the reality of the landscape today, and if they missed that they missed an
important point," he commented.

"Obviously the federal government is concerned about the enormous amount of
resources that are invested both on the police side and on the court side
to deal with those very, very small amounts of marijuana that become the
subject of possession charges."

Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has said he's considering the bold
move so people nabbed with weed for personal use get tickets instead of
criminal records.

The news comes shortly after the British government made a similar move.

That doesn't mean pot will be legal, Wasylyshen noted.

And though the chief has said before he's warm to the idea of
decriminalizing small amounts of the drug, he's still worried about the
"gateway" argument that smoking grass leads to harder drug use.

"If we were talking about a fairly benign substance, something that's
fairly weak, I might be convinced that, well, maybe it's not that much of a
gateway drug," he said.

"But I know for a fact that the hydroponic stuff that's grown today is very
high potency, and I'm concerned that even the use of small amounts of that
can have quite a profound effect on people and might, in fact, introduce
them more rapidly to using other drugs."

Sgt. Peter Ratcliff, president of the Edmonton Police Association, said he
hopes the feds leave the drug laws alone.

"It's kind of startling that the minister of justice and the solicitor
general are at opposite ends of the spectrum on this one," he said, noting
that Solicitor General Lawrence McCauley has voiced concerns about
decriminalization.

And Ratcliff added that current practice in Canada is that anyone found
with less than 30 grams of marijuana won't be thrown in jail.

"There's no fingerprinting, there's no photographing and you get a fine in
court," he said.

But the president of the Marijuana Party of Alberta - who's facing pot
charges in a Fort McMurray court - said he thinks the government is too
afraid to take the full plunge.

Pot should be legalized and taken right off the street level, said Reginald
Normore.

"Put an age limit on it, just like alcohol or cigarettes, then put it in
the stores," Normore said from his home in Fort McMurray, 437 km northeast
of Edmonton.