FREE US FROM THIS REEFER MADNESS

The sun had not yet dried the dew from the fairway when one of my
companions, a man in his 50s whom I had met half an hour before,
interrupted my early morning reverie to explain that he and his friends had
their own little ritual. Would I care to join them?

It was about 8 a.m. a few weeks ago, on the fourth tee of a country golf
course. The man was lighting a joint. It was an unexpected ritual for that
hour of the morning, especially with a stranger; for all I know, it could
in theory have landed him in jail. But I probably didn't look like a cop.

Frankly, I was surprised. You smoke marijuana to heighten your enjoyment of
music, sex, conversation, reading, smells, tastes. So why not golf? Does it
improve your game? I asked. He smiled wryly: "We don't know, but it makes
it more fun."

The casualness of that encounter among strangers in a setting as improbable
as a nine-hole golf course is a useful barometer of Canadian attitudes
about the supposed perils of marijuana.

To that small vignette most people could add dozens of their own. Marijuana
is not just the recreational drug of students on their lunch hour, although
it is that, but of people in almost every other phase and stage of Canadian
society. The marijuana culture is embraced by lawyers, teachers,
aboriginals, government officials, and probably butchers and bakers and
candlestick makers. A friend of mine would, almost as a matter of
principle, toke up every day as he drove down Highway 401 to Oshawa to work
on the assembly line at General Motors; I assume he made mellow cars.

For an astonishing number of Canadians, marijuana is no big deal. The
suspicion is that a good many parliamentarians understand that and may
share the attitude. Even Joe Clark, hardly one of the wacko demons from
Reefer Madness,is prepared to suggest that the use of marijuana should be
decriminalized.

All this comes to mind because yet another parliamentary committee is
setting out to inquire into the mysteries of the non-medical use of drugs,
justifying their newly inflated salaries by trying to discover what is
already known.

Inevitably, the MPs on the committee are wondering whether they should go
to the Netherlands and contemplate the wonder of over-the-counter
marijuana. If my own experience is any use to them, I can save them the air
fare.

In The Hague more than a decade ago, I was walking along a downtown street
one evening with several colleagues and spotted a sign that I later
concluded was meant to look like the Jamaican flag; across the flag was the
word "ganja." It was a fairly modest cafe, with a variety of people quietly
drinking coffee, tea or beer and smoking marijuana, all of which were
available at the counter.

As a criminal enterprise, it was charmingly matter-of-fact, and that is the
point. The Dutch simply stopped enforcing the law on marijuana long ago,
and Dutch society seems to be the better for it.

The idea of our parliamentarians spending their summers on matters
psychotropic is, of course, a fraud. It may keep them off the streets, but
they cannot be fooling even themselves.

The non-medical use of drugs has been studied to death. You can go back to
the British government's Indian Hemp Commission report in 1894, a
succession of U.S. medical and sociological reports, or the exhaustive work
of the Le Dain commission.

In its 1972 report on cannabis, the Le Dain commission helpfully included a
massive bibliography on cannabis and its effects. The bibliography contains
682 references, back to and including the report of the Indian Hemp
Commission. What more needs to be known?

Of course, it is not knowledge that is lacking but fortitude. Since the
cautious and circumspect recommendations of the Le Dain report -- repeal at
least the prohibition against simple possession of marijuana -- a
succession of governments has said, well, harrumph, and suggested more study.

Governments and backbenchers who are prepared to take chances occasionally
on other controversial subjects are not prepared to do so on the subject of
drugs. Joe Clark notwithstanding, Reefer Madness has seeped into the
subconscious of a lot of people who probably fancy themselves pretty gutsy.

When members of the Commons committee on drug use were asked whether they
had ever smoked marijuana, several acknowledged they had, most said they
had not, and Liberal Mac Harb distinguished himself by saying, "I will not
confirm or deny."

Brainless though it may seem, I suspect that Mr. Harb's evasion strikes a
profound resonance with Jean Chretien, never a man to take unnecessary
political risks. There may be thousands of Canadians convicted every year
and crushed with a criminal conviction, but, what the hell, they probably
don't vote anyway.