Canadian marijuana reform concerns U.S.

Kevin Newman (Global TV anchor): Who would have thought you'd live long enough to see this. Hearings by Canadian parliamentarians into legalizing marijuana. And even more amazing is whose running the hearings.

 Senators, whose average age has tended to those 55 plus. But today in Regina they kicked off a series of meetings aimed at looking at whether it's time to take smoking pot off the list of crimes in Canada. And framing these discussions is a little-noticed report they've just issued reaching some startling conclusions.

 The Senate committee concludes there is no convincing evidence that smoking pot leads to using harder drugs.

 It says marijuana use does not induce users to commit other crimes, or engage in risky activity such as driving quickly.

 The Senate also found that one in every three Canadian kids age 15 and 16 has smoked at least once in the past month, and that one and a half million Canadians have a criminal record because of what the Senate calls simple possession.

 Ground-breaking stuff. But this report, and Canada’s willingness to allow people to use marijuana for medical purposes, also seems to have raised the ire of the U.S. in a significant way. We’ve learned tonight that its drug czar is pressuring Canadian authorities not to loosen Canadian law and he's carrying a very big stick -- threatening trade sanctions if we don't do what he wants. Global National's Carl Hanlon has the exclusive details.

 Hanlon: On the street its called B.C. bud and American demand for it is reaching new highs.  Sources close to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency say it will soon issue a report claiming there are 15 to 20,000 marijuana growing operations in British Columbia alone and 95 per cent of the output is headed south.

 "A dramatic increase in the gross quantity of marijuana of high potency coming across the border," says Colonel Robert Maginnis, a U.S. government adviser on drug policy. He says the Bush administration is alarmed by a recent Senate study that says Canada’s marijuana laws are ineffective. 

 Hanlon: The U.S. fears the next step could be looser regulations leading to more drugs crossing the border and its ready to play hardball with trade to make sure that doesn't happen.

 "To antagonize government leaders and grass roots leaders because you insist on having a radical drug policy that we will not ignore in the long term, then its going to have adverse consequences and I hope we would be able to rectify it before it comes to blows," explains Maginnis.

Hanlon:  The U.S. is closely watching the Canadian marijuana debate and is working behind the scenes to influence the outcome. Next month the president's chief of drug policy attend a drug conference in Quebec and he'll make sure his counterparts understand the U.S. opposes liberalization.

 As for the Canadian government, Solicitor General Lawrence Macaulay did not respond when asked if Canada is being pressured by U.S.

 The organization for the reform of marijuana laws says the Americans have a habit of throwing their weight around to influence other country's drug laws.

Allen St. Pierre (Reform of Marijuana Laws): Those countries often then bend and defer to the United States will on this and, unfortunately, abandon not only their own pragmatism and common sense, but to some degree their own sovereignty.

Hanlon: Ottawa has confirmed that the US Drug Enforcement Agency [Administration] turned down a request to provide high quality seeds for the [Canadian] government's medical marijuana program. Then [Canadian federal] Health Minister Allan Rock was forced to rely on seeds confiscated by [Canadian] police, leading to an inferior crop and delay in providing pot to Canadians.

In Washington, this is Global's Carl Hanlon.

Newman: Ottawa was pushing ahead with plans to provide government grown medical marijuana people with serious illness, but those efforts appear to have stalled.

 But the American angst over medical marijuana use may be a little premature.

 As of Friday [May 10, 2002] fewer than 255 Canadians have received licenses to smoke,

 And of those 164 can smoke their own because enough government grown isn't available yet.