A News Analysis By Terence T. Gorski (5-28-01) Tom Cohen of the Associated Press reported on May 28, 2001 that Canada's drug control policy is slowly but clearly shifting toward decriminalizing marijuana. This Canadian political movement is in opposition to current trends in US drug law and could influence future direction of drug policy in the United States toward a public health addiction policy that focuses upon prevention and treatment and away from a criminal justice drug policy that focuses upon punishment as a deterrent.
Canada has historically been more tolerant of marijuana than the United States and arrest statistics show the disparity in the two nation's approaches. The Canadian Center on Substance Abuse said about 25,000 people were arrested in Canada for simple possession of marijuana in 1999.
The U.S. figure for that year under the ``zero tolerance'' policy of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was 24 times higher, exceeding 600,000, says the......
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