TROYES, France, Sept 23 (Reuter) President Jacques Chirac reiterated on Wednesday that France would maintain controls along its northern borders to stop drug runners despite the Schengen openborder pact between some European Union states.

He said during a visit to Troyes in northeastern France that continuing drugtrafficking to and from the Netherlands made the controls necessary.

Chirac also sniped at French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet, who recently admitted to having smoked marijuana, as a leftright controversy raged over her suggestion that soft drugs should be legalised.

[continues 471 words]

By Susannah Herbert, The Daily Telegraph

PARIS French Environment Minister Dominque Voynet expressed support yesterday for the legalization of cannabis, a drug she admitted having smoked.

"Speaking as a doctor and as a politician, I am still in favour of legalization," Ms. Voynet said. "The occasional consumption of cannabis has no impact on health and social bonds.

"I am more worried by the number of French people who need sleeping pills than by the number of people who admit smoking a joint," she told the magazine Charlie Hebdo.

[continues 136 words]

Reuters

PARISThe French opposition Socialist leader, Lionel Jospin, saying he had twice smoked hashish, told a television interviewer Sunday that he wanted to decriminalize the use of the drug if his party won the parliamentary election scheduled for May 25 and June 1.

"I did it once in the United States, with a young woman, and I think once in France," Mr. Jospin said in the interview with Canal Plus television about a 1995 admission that he had smoked hashish.

He said his party would decriminalize the drug if it emerged victorious from the voting. "Legalizing sounds like justifying," he said. "Penalizing is absurd. I think we have to find a line somewhere between the two."

France forbids the recreational use of drugs and has frequently clashed with the Netherlands, where the possession of small amounts of soft drugs is tolerated.

[end]

PARIS, April 27 (Reuter) French opposition Socialist leader Lionel Jospin, saying he had twice smoked hashish in his life, told a television interviewer on Sunday he wanted to decriminalise use of the drug if his party wins a snap parliamentary election.

``I did it once in the United States, with a young woman, and I think once in France,'' Jospin said in the interview with Canal Plus television about a 1995 admission that he had smoked hashish.

He said his party would decriminalise the drug if it emerged victorious from the twostage polling on May 25 and June 1. ``Legalising sounds like justifying, penalising is absurd. I think we have to find a line somewhere between the two,'' he said.

France now forbids any use of narcotics and has frequently clashed with the Netherlands, where small amounts of soft drugs are tolerated.

[end]

A Buddhist funeral for poet Allen Ginsberg drew several hundred people here Monday to honor one of the leading writers of the 1950s antiestablishment Beat Generation.

Ginsberg died Saturday of liver cancer. He was 70.

A coffin containing Ginsberg's body was draped with yellow, red and white silk embroidered with a sun, the emblem of the Shambala community with whom the poet made frequent retreats.

Ginsberg had converted Buddhism years ago and began each day with meditation.

The celebritystudded crowd of mourners, including singer Patti Smith and Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg's companion for four decades, took off their shoes and knelt before two altars, then assumed the lotus position on floor cushions.

[continues 136 words]

[continues 136 words]