Pot Smokers Don't Loot And Riot

MAYBE WE SHOULD RAISE THE DRINKING AGE AND LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

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.

PARTY-GOERS

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.

FEW BUSINESSES ESCAPED

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?