Pubdate: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2010 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Janice Tibbetts, Postmedia News SENATE TAKES SECOND LOOK AT TOUGHER MARIJUANA BILL A Conservative bill to jail offenders caught growing five or more marijuana plants was back before the Senate Wednesday, a year after it made the rare move of watering down the government's proposals by raising the bar to 200 plants. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson ignored the Senate amendments when he resurrected his proposed legislation last spring, and the upper chamber, which has fewer Liberals than it did a year ago, has less muscle this time around. Nicholson warned a Senate committee Wednesday that amending his proposed legislation again "would severely weaken the bill" so that a person involved in organized crime could have 150 plants in several locations and escape jail nonetheless. "This is directed at traffickers, the people who would sell drugs to children," Nicholson said. He said that there is no way that someone who grows 150 plants does not intend to sell marijuana, although he acknowledged it could be harder to prove trafficking when a grower is caught with seven plants. His bill, if passed, would impose mandatory incarceration for a variety of drug-related crimes for the first time in Canada, adding to more than two dozen criminal offences that already carry automatic imprisonment. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D