FATTIES FOR ALL

So come on people. What does 500 pounds of marijuana tell you?

Last week the cops nailed a guy named Ed Pearce from Paradise with
that much dope.

I think he's telling us something - an awful lot of people in this
city smoke weed.

An awful lot.

What interested me about the whole exercise is the quiet, collective
hypocrisy of the residents of the northeast Avalon.

The media dutifully showed a delighted police chief Joe Browne posing
with the cartons of weed, getting a little good press. He even tried
on some macho posturing, suggesting drug dealers be scared.

Oh please. It isn't a business for the faint of heart, and the cops
are often the least of a smuggler's worries.

Meantime, the rest of us sit at home, saying and doing nothing, and
watch this guy Pearce go down.

And a lot of us smoke his product.

I have written a legalizing marijuana column before. In fact, the
largest response I ever received for something I have written was for
a piece I wrote on chronics - people who abuse marijuana.

Since that column ran many people have stopped me in supermarkets,
bars, or e-mailed me to note they have a brother, or a cousin, an
uncle or a Dad who smokes too much dope.

I hit a nerve. This is a problem. A problem compounded by the fact
marijuana is illegal.

I have no beef with the cops - they have a job to do and they do it.

But I would like to rewrite their job descriptions.

There is enough serious crime out there for our already under-funded
police force to tackle. Abuse of dangerous drugs like OxyContin comes
to mind. Violence against women is a huge issue which remains largely
unaddressed. Some corporate crime in this city doesn't even get investigated.

I don't think police should be wasting their time chasing around
after two-bit grow-ops and small-time smugglers. (Granted, Pearce
seems to have been called up to the majors.)

We, the dope smokers of Newfoundland and Labrador, should be given
some recognition and some respect.

Think that last line reads funny?

Pearce got caught with 500 pounds. My inquiries indicate no
fluctuation in price or supply. You don't need Memorial economist
Wade Locke to explain what that means.

Like most of my acquaintances (I see people frantically waving their
hands with the don't-mention-me gesture) I enjoy the occasional draw.
I also like the odd ounce of whiskey, and there is nothing nicer than
a cold beer on a hot day.

That does not make us drug fiends or alcoholics.

When is someone in charge going to step up to the plate, and rewrite
the laws so a hefty chunk of the populace isn't turned into criminals?

We must decriminalize marijuana.

Stand up, all you lawyers and judges who have never had a draw.

Cops. All rise - up ya get - you who have never had a toke.

Media? Do NOT make me laugh.

Pearce has been arrested and, if he is found guilty, will be
punished. Fair play. I have no wish to make him a folk hero.

But I think legalizing marijuana and taxing it makes sense - more
sense than having police waste their time trying to stop us from
getting wasted.

bootleg beer?

I think I speak for most when I say I would love to buy a safe,
regulated product.

When was the last time you thought of buying bootleg beer? Even at half price?

Get serious. It's India for me all the way.

Here's a sobering (OK . mind-boggling?) statistic - 500 pounds of
weed works out, if you accept the City of St. John's website figure
of 180,000 people living in the greater "metropolitan" area, to one
big fattie for every man, woman and child in the region.

There's not enough ice cream and chocolate sauce on the Avalon to
accommodate everyone smoking a fattie at the same time.

Seems to me there's a disconnect here between the law and reality.

What seems more sensible to you? Spending a fortune on police to
crack down hard on thousands of citizens, filling up the courts and
the jails with dope smokers, until we are all beaten into submission
and change our ways, or change the law to take marijuana out of the
hands of criminals, make it a safe product as well as a source of
revenue for the province's treasury?

Take your time.

Smoking dope does not turn you into a fiend crazed for cocaine and
OxyContin any more than enjoying a fine single malt heads you down
the path to alcoholism.

Abuse is a symptom, not an effect.

Marijuana smokers are not holding up gas stations with a syringe,
robbing people's homes, or selling everything they own for their next
draw. For the most part they are folks relaxing on a Friday night by
the BBQ after a long week's work.

Why are they criminals?