HYPNOTIST HELPS POTHEADS TO BUTT OUT

Anti-pot campaigner and hypnotist M. Vance Romane is rolling into
town next month to try and put the clip on Vancouver's
marijuana-smoking scene.

Romane knows it will be a battle-almost 5,000 presumably pot-smoking
Vancouverites voted for the B.C. Marijuana Party in last Wednesday's
provincial election. But the 52-year-old hopes a raft of medical
evidence highlighting the dangers of pot consumption, combined with
his hypnotic therapy seminar, will help curtail the habits of at
least some of the city's potheads.

"Vancouver is the pot capital of North America," said Romane, a White
Rock resident who held his first pot-specific hypnotic seminar in
Winnipeg two months ago. "We give massive hypnotic suggestions to try
and break the habit, to break the patterns that lead to the habit and
to boost self-esteem."

Romane, a trained psychologist, began using hypnotic therapy to help
people stop cigarette smoking in the 1960s. "In the 1980s I was
getting people at the seminars saying I want to stop smoking the
other stuff too. I responded that if they wanted to use the
techniques at the stop smoking seminar they could stop marijuana
smoking as well."

Romane chose Winnipeg as the site for his first stop pot-smoking
seminar because that's where he grew up and studied. However, fear of
police involvement kept many people away, and despite huge media
coverage, only 40 people showed up for the Winnipeg gig.

With Vancouver police more relaxed about pot smoking, Romane expects
a large turnout at his seminar at the Holiday Inn Vancouver Centre
June 14 and hopes he can convince some Marijuana Party voters of the
error of their ways.

"I looked at the Marijuana Party web site and was really disgusted.
They want to OK prostitution, get rid of the DARE drugs program and
have free use of guns," said Romane, who has never smoked marijuana.

But what upsets the hypnotist most is that the man behind the party,
Marc Emery, runs a pot-based empire including a store, magazine and
cable-TV program. "The party is really a backhanded money-making
venture. It's a smokescreen for the sale of illicit drugs."

But Emery countered that all the money he earns goes back into
attempts to legalize marijuana. "A hypnotist going around making
money by controlling people's desires sounds like a suspicious
activity to me. He's a control freak looking to set an agenda inside
people's heads when they can't do it themselves," said Emery, whose
store at 307 West Hastings St. will be used to generate money for
upcoming election campaigns.

"I don't meet many people who say 'Marc, I'm just dying to get off
marijuana.' And if they do, I say, 'Well stop smoking pot-it's not
addictive.'"

The B.C. Marijuana Party scooped almost 53,000 votes province-wide,
with Emery getting 724 votes in the Vancouver-Burrard riding. Port
Moody-Westwood candidate Graeme Smecher reaped 1,359 votes, the
party's highest tally in the province.

Romane, who believes a pot smoker who can't go without a toke for at
least 30 days is addicted, said tell-tale signs of addiction are loss
of touch with reality, loss of motivation, troubled relationships and
poor performance at work.

"The people I met in Winnipeg felt marijuana was ruining their
lifestyle. We get them to imagine themselves as free of addiction and
enjoying a happier lifestyle. Hypnotism can work for people whose
mind-set is on change."

For the record, a ticket to Romane's June 14 seminar will cost about
the same as half an ounce of pot. Call Ticketmaster for tickets.