CANADA CONSIDERS EASING MARIJUANA LAWS

TORONTO - Just days after Britain announced plans to soften its laws on
possession of marijuana, officials with the office of Canadian Justice
Minister Martin Cauchon said Canada might follow the British lead.

Justice Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
last week that Cauchon is considering lessening the penalties for
possession of marijuana to a fine rather than a prison term.

A few months ago, the Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs
issued a preliminary report criticizing the government's current drug policy.

According to the report, an estimated 30 to 50 percent of Canadians age 15
to 24 have used marijuana despite efforts to eradicate its use, and nearly
30,000 people a year face criminal charges for simple possession. This
amounts to half of all drug charges in Canada, and while 25 percent of
those are typically discharged, the rest face criminal records.

In 2000, Canadian police departments reported a total of 87,945 drug-
related offenses - three-quarters of which involved marijuana. The number
of police-reported incidents involving marijuana increased from 47,234 in
1996 to 66,171 incidents in 2000.

"When you examine cannabis usage among youth, you realize that
(criminalizing it) has absolutely no effect," said Sen. Pierre Claude
Nolin, chairman of the special committee.

The committee also reported that scientific evidence suggests that
marijuana use does not automatically drive people to use "harder" drugs
such as cocaine and heroin.

The federal government has also financed a medical marijuana farm in an
abandoned Manitoba mine, though it has yet to offer the government-
financed drug for those on its medical-use list.

While Canada criminalized marijuana use in 1923 - 14 years before the
United States - and the nation still fines tens of thousands of people
every year for possession, "compassion clubs" where marijuana is
distributed to desperately ill people for pain relief operate openly in
several provinces, and police in Vancouver often turn a blind eye to cafes
where marijuana is smoked.

In Canada, all criminal laws are national, so any change in federal
marijuana laws will affect the entire country, rather than just a single
province.

However, the biggest concern for Canadian lawmakers contemplating a
softening of marijuana penalties is not the reaction at home but in the
offices of politicians south of the border.

Some U.S. politicians are worried that any softening of Canada's marijuana
laws would lead to a surge of Americans crossing the border to take
advantage of the softer drug laws. In New York State, marijuana-related
offenses are punishable by fines ranging from $100 to $5,000 and by prison
sentences of up to 15 years.

Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Mark E. Souder, R-Ind., chairman of the House
subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources, warned
visiting Canadian politicians that America would crack down even harder on
border controls between the two countries if Canada softened its marijuana
laws. Souder was the author of a U.S. law that bans Americans with drug
convictions from receiving federal student loans.

Despite this, Vancouver Mayor Phillip Owen said that drug use was a health
matter, not a criminal one, and that the money spent prosecuting marijuana
charges represents a staggering drain on public resources.

Some observers, however, think that the United States is a toothless tiger
regarding Canada's drug policy. Ethan A. Nadelmann, director of the Drug
Policy Alliance, a U.S. group seeking changes in drug laws, said that trade
between the two nations is too important and that any U.S. reaction would
be limited to verbal condemnation.

Cauchon is to discuss his plans for changes in marijuana laws during a
meeting of the Canadian Bar Association next month.