SLEEPING THROUGH THE RIOT;

Pot May Have A Number Of Drawbacks, But At Least The People Who Use It Seem
To Stay Out Of Trouble; The Same Can't Be Said For The Boozers Who Rampaged
Through Edmonton

I stepped outside my front door the other afternoon and inhaled what should
have been clean, fresh air but which turned out to be a cloud of marijuana.

Not just a whiff of grass, but a big strong lungful.

If you had been me, you would have been looking around the corner for the
smoker and wondering how he could have run away so quickly.

I, of course, knew better.

We've lived on our street for eight years and have seen -- or rather,
smelled -- the way air currents carry scents from the wooded ravine behind
us, up and over the house and deliver them at the front door like junk mail.

Long ago, we discovered to our sorrow that our ravine is a mecca for
youthful dope smokers and drinkers. They climb up a concrete staircase from
the main street and veer off the steps onto an old chunk of sidewalk that
leads into a wooded hideaway.

They can see out, but it's hard to see in. Certainly, none of the
homeowners can see them unless they walk down to the edge and peer over. We
might never have known without the wayward breeze that brings the
unmistakable odour.

Drinkers, on the other hand, are loud and they tend to do their drinking --
and the accompanying yelling and fighting and smashing of glass -- at night
after everyone is in bed, and in nice weather they show up on a regular
basis too. But unlike the smokers, you can't miss them. They're noisy and
dirty.

Our ravine, which looks so dense and verdant from below, is right now full
of broken glass and pop cans and all the other rubbish that rampaging kids
and/or adults leave behind.

Once, during one of his regular ravine cleanups, my husband found a whole
heap of scratch 'n' win lottery tickets (all scratched) which the police
told him had been stolen from a local drug store.

I was thinking about our regular visitors the other day when I read about
the Canada Day riot in Edmonton. As many as 2,000 Canada Day party-goers,
fuelled by plenty of alcohol, rampaged through a high-end Edmonton
neighbourhood, smashing windows and destroying property.

Some of them were singing O Canada as they spilled out of the bars when
they closed at 2 a.m. and began to create mayhem.

There were 20 arrests and several injured police, including two whose bike
helmets were cracked by chunks of flying concrete.

One of the rioters was bitten by a police dog while resisting arrest. His
photo appeared in a number of newspapers, his arm, on which a largish
German shepherd was chowing down, clearly visible.

"It was," one officer said, "a bad, bad night."

Booze will do that, won't it? Now what do you suppose it would have been
like if everyone in Edmonton had been smoking dope all evening? You and I
know the answer to that one: By 2 a.m., everyone would have been asleep.

For that is one of the positive results of marijuana use: You seldom see a
smoker turn ugly. Mellow, yes. Boring, yes. Unpleasant, no.

Booze, on the other hand, leads to nothing but trouble.

Always has. Just ask the Edmonton police, or the residents and shopkeepers
of the Old Strathcona neighbourhood where windows were smashed and shops
looted.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage was done and few
businesses in the area escaped. By the time it was all over, 95 officers
were involved and only succeeded in calming things by using that old
standby, pepper spray.

Now I'm not saying marijuana is a good thing.

I'm sure it's addictive and I'm also sure it can't be good for your lungs.

Ever seen a joint with a filter tip? And I'm also not saying I approve of
kids holing up in a ravine to do dope.

But I am saying booze is bad -- for the troublemakers in Edmonton; for the
bozos who wander into my backyard clutching a bottle.

Although I certainly don't condone trespassing, I'd really rather have kids
smoking marijuana down in my ravine any day ahead of youthful dim bulbs
with nothing better to do than suck down liquor and trash private property.

The boozers are apt to do anything; the dope smokers cause no problems
(unless you count the possibility of a small forest fire).

If I were in charge of the laws of this land, I'd raise the drinking age to
21 and decriminalize marijuana possession. Isn't it time we stopped talking
about it and did something?

Walter Tychnowicz SUN file photo

A POLICE canine unit attempt to arrest an unidentified man as police start
moving in toward a crowd of rioters early July 2 in Edmonton.