LIBERALS TO TORCH DOPE LEGISLATION

The Liberal government must have felt legislation backed by New Democrats,
the Bloc Quebecois, more than half the Canadian Alliance caucus and some
cabinet ministers was getting perilously close to actually becoming law. So
they moved to kill a private member's bill by Canadian Alliance MP and
doctor Keith Martin to decriminalize marijuana possession.

Martin is blaming the Prime Minister's Office for burying his bill by
introducing, via a friendly backbencher, an amendment known as a "poison
pill." The amendment will be the end of the road for a bill two years in
the making and "renders Parliament irrelevant," Martin laments. He has
written to all Liberals, urging them to buck their party's amendment when
it comes to a vote Wednesday. Don't expect the backbench to light up.