WE'RE GETTING TOO LENIENT OVER POTENT POT

According to Vancouver Police statistics, the marijuana growing
industry in B.C. has an annual harvest worth $6 billion, which makes
it bigger business than logging, mining, manufacturing or tourism.

In the past year, GrowBusters, a special Vancouver Police
anti-marijuana squad, has destroyed 100 grow operations without
laying a single charge. Since marijuana growers are given absurdly
lenient sentences, Grow Busters personnel have elected not to waste
energy constructing criminal cases. They just keep busting more grow
operations, leaving little notes saying, "We have your pot.
Sincerely, The Vancouver Police." That's like forbidding your kid to
smoke, then discovering a carton of cigarettes and confiscating it
without a reprimand.

The Criminal Code of Canada prohibits the possession and trafficking
of marijuana. If you smoke marijuana you are an outlaw numbskull. If
you grow it or sell it you are dangerous criminal. I'm sick of
hearing people refer to marijuana as a "soft drug". There's nothing
"soft" about a product that wrecks your lungs, destroys your
ambition, and makes you impotent.

Apparently, 56 per cent of B.C. residents favour the legalization of
marijuana. Who are these people? Pot addicts? Creaky hippies
experiencing a nostalgic spasm of rebellion? Marijuana is no longer
the feel-good puff it was 30 years ago. In Grade 8, I often sparked
up a joint on the way home from school so I could relate to my mum
better.

Back then, it was giggly little drug. But the penalties were serious.
At the age of 15, I was imprisoned overseas for a month for
possessing a single joint. Now the situation has been reversed.
Modern hydroponically-grown marijuana is so potent it's difficult to
construct a sentence in your native tongue after a single toke. And
yet the justice system has lost its desire to capture and prosecute
the growers and dealers of this potent psychotropic drug.

Marijuana-legalization advocates claim that it is safer to drive
stoned than drunk. Maybe, but so what? Whacking yourself on the knee
with a 16-ounce framing hammer is less painful than hitting yourself
on the head with it. That doesn't make it a good idea.

When I was at the height of my marijuana use (about the age of 14), I
had dinner one night with a graduate student of my dad's. Somehow,
the subject of pot came up. "Enjoy it now," she said. "It's a young
person's drug." How true. I know only one heavy pot-smoker my own
age. He is a deeply gifted musician who lives on welfare in his
mother's basement, hoards his urine in wine bottles, and spends his
days watching old movies. He has utterly squandered the massive
talent that God gave him.

It's unfortunate that marijuana is most attractive to children. This
new generation cannot afford any substance that induces lethargy. My
10-year-old son is typical of his peers. His bicycle is encased in
cobwebs in a corner of the garage. He shuffles around in his untied
runners as though they were slippers. He gathers with his friends at
whoever's house has the most gigahertz and they play Star Craft with
strangers over the internet.

Yesterday I invited my son to walk to the store with me. "I don't
feel like going on a hike." A "hike"? It's three blocks. I used to
run that distance in my bare feet before breakfast just to work out
the jitters.

Many of these zoned-out little screen junkies fail the fundamental
test of being alive (response to external stimuli). They don't need
pot; they need amphetamines.