POT PARTY HAS RIGHT-WING BENT

VICTORIA - Despite the easy jokes about Cheech and Chong, the Marijuana
Party is carving out a real niche in B.C.'s crowded political playing field.

The party isn't going to elect any candidates. But - like the Reform Party
- - the Marijuana Party is finding support from the disaffected and
disgruntled, the people who simply want less government in their lives.

And that's a large group.

Party leader Brian Taylor is a likable man, the right kind of leader for
the new party. He's a former mayor of Grand Forks, a 55-year-old who looks
more like a cowboy than a Rastafarian and talks more about the economic
aspects of the party platform than the miraculous benefits of all things
cannabis. He ran for the NDP in 1983, against Bill Bennett. He lost, but he
got 12,000 votes.

On the day I caught up with him, he'd had a root canal in the morning and
was sitting down to write a eulogy for his father, who had died of heart
failure while Taylor was campaigning in northern B.C.

But Taylor set the work aside to talk about the party's election campaign,
surprising both for its success and the kind of supporters the party is
attracting. Mixed in with the expected college students and aging hippies
are businesspeople and libertarians attracted by the Marijuana Party's
determination to kick government out of peoples' lives.

The party has attracted conservatives - including some senior Canadian
Alliance supporters - angry at everything from the health care
establishment to police anti-drug programs to bicycle helmet laws.
"Government is interfering in our lives everywhere," Taylor says. "What are
we doing telling some little old men riding bicycles that they have to wear
funny looking hats?"

The most recent polls show the Marijuana Party running at three and four
percent support; in most of the province it's ahead of the Unity Party.
That will translate into at least 60,000 British Columbians who opt for a
protest vote on May 16. Only the Marijuana Party, Liberals and NDP have
candidates in all 79 ridings.

Eli Sopow's not surprised, and says the party's success is a preview of
days of protest that lie ahead. Sopow is a consultant, a former reporter
who worked in the last days of the Socred government. He says the Liberals
will face a difficult time governing a population that's growing
increasingly distrustful and resentful of institutional authority. He's
prepared a report called Ticking, Clicking and Ready to Explode:
Middle-Aged Militants in British Columbia, that is based partly on a
provincial survey done in March.

Sopow found the middle-aged masses have lost faith in big government, big
corporations and even big environmental groups.

And he found the mistrust isn't confined to the young or those on the
fringe. There was almost as much willingness for those between 35 and 55 to
protest as there was among students. And almost across the board people
reported that they were both more disgruntled and more militant now than
they were a decade ago.

Those are the people the party is reaching. Party president Marc Emery is a
marijuana entrepreneur. He's running for the party, but more importantly
he's putting up most of the $250,000 in funding.

The Marijuana Party isn't seeking the left-wing vote, he says. "Our theme
is choices, options, tolerance," he said. "We're promoting heavily in rural
areas our opposition to Ottawa's gun registration scheme."

The Marijuana Party won't elect any members. But it may speak for people
who expect the government to do less, explain better and allow more choice.
And that's a movement the mainstream parties need to embrace, not ignore.