editorial comment That people are ahead of politicians is nothing new.....

Canadians are smoking pot more than ever before and the majority want police and government to leave people to indulge in peace.

A new poll for the advocacy group NORML Canada shows for the first time that more than half of Canadians effectively support legalization, with 57 per cent reporting that people should be "left alone" if they are caught with small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

A advance copy of the survey was given to CanWest News Service on Wednesday, the same day the federal government released a study of 13,000 Canadians showing that marijuana use has doubled in the last decade.

Fourteen per cent of those surveyed for the federal study said they smoked pot in the last year, up from 7.4 in 1994. The study also revealed that almost 30 per cent of 15- to 17-year-olds and 47 per cent of 18- and 19-year-olds had used marijuana in the last year.

"This is really a rude awakening for the government," said Jody Pressman, executive director of the advocacy group NORML Canada.

"Government is going in the wrong direction if it thinks decriminalization is a step forward," said Pressman, whose pro-marijuana group commissioned the poll.

The survey also reveals that only eight per cent support criminalizing marijuana if it leads to jail time. Another 32 per cent believe that pot possession should be punished by fines rather than criminal records, a middle ground that is currently proposed in a federal bill winding its way through Parliament.

NORML wants the federal government to scrap its controversial decriminalization bill and bring in an end to prohibition and begin regulating the industry.

"It's easier to get marijuana on a schoolground today than it is to get alcohol or cigarettes because we don't apply the same regulatory measures to marijuana to keep it away from young people," said Pressman.

SES president Nikita Nanos attributed the hike to the government "normalizing" marijuana use through its policy of allowing people to smoke for medicinal purposes.

The survey shows that Canadians are softening on marijuana laws at a time when some police and parts of the business community, and especially the U.S. government, are stepping up their opposition.

While the latest poll reveals that only eight per cent support criminalization if it means going to jail, it did not gauge opinion on the far more likely scenario of people receiving a criminal record but escaping jail.

© The Windsor Star 2004

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