WHIFF OF CANNABIS STIRS FRENCH PRESIDENT RACE

PARIS - The acrid scent of cannabis wafted into France's presidential race
on Tuesday as Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stirred controversy by
suggesting occasional smokers should be treated with leniency.

Supporters of conservative President Jacques Chirac, his neck-and-neck
rival in the April 21 vote, slammed the remarks as irresponsible while the
country's pro-legalisation lobby called for a proper debate on reform of
France's tough drug laws.

Jospin, who has previously owned up to having smoked cannabis himself
twice, started it all by telling an interviewer on Monday: "Smoking a joint
at home is certainly less dangerous than drinking and driving."

He added that outright legalisation would send the wrong signal to the
young but insisted France's 32-year-old drug laws should be applied "in an
intelligent manner" towards users.

With law and order the dominant issue so far in the election campaign, the
comments drew swift condemnation on Tuesday from Chirac's Rally for the
Republic (RPR) party.

"This is typical of the attitude of his government, whose ministers have
sought time and again to trivialise this issue," said RPR deputy Bernard
Accoyer, referring to earlier calls on the left to reform drug laws.

"He clearly has no idea of the real damage caused (by cannabis)," Accoyer
said in a statement.

Some four million French are believed to smoke cannabis, whether in the
form of hashish resin or marijuana leaves.

Some European countries are increasingly turning a blind eye to small users
as they refocus police efforts on hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine. In
France, someone caught in possession of enough cannabis for one joint could
face jail as a dealer.

Jospin suggested during his victorious 1997 parliamentary election campaign
that he would look at relaxing French laws on soft drugs, but then
backpedalled amid protests from the right.

The left-leaning magazine Le Nouvel Observateur said in a website editorial
posted on Tuesday that legalisation would mean fewer backstreet dealers
working on high margins and also supplying hard drugs.

"Instead of being run by gangsters, it would be in the hands of a few
well-regulated professionals," it argued.

Only two of over a dozen candidates in the presidential race back outright
legalisation -- the Greens' Noel Mamere and Olivier Besancenot, a
27-year-old Trotskyite postman.

Analysts say French attitudes on soft drugs are linked closely to overall
political leanings. They talk about the "joint-smoking left" and the
"red-wine-drinking right."