POT SMOKERS ARE IN SERIOUS DENIAL OVER THEIR DRIVING ABILITY

As a news junkie, I've had many worrying moments in my life, including
riding a professional bucking horse without a parachute. And, while my
nerves may have been stretched at times like an old bungee cord,
they've never been completely shattered.

Nevertheless, I find the prospect of my good buddy, B.C. Marijuana
Party Leader Marc Emery, the Prince of Pot, barrelling toward me on a
rain-soaked road in his retro-looking, torquoise Ford Thunderbird,
stoned on B.C. Bud, to be a truly frightening one.

Yet Emery, freshly released from a Saskatchewan jail, where he served
61 days on a joint-passing charge (his 15th time behind bars), wants
me to believe pot not only doesn't impair one's driving ability, it
actually enhances it.

A motorist on marijuana, Emery claims, is a mellow safety-minded
driver. Folks on pot, he insists, tend to travel more slowly and
conservatively than hard-driving, goal-oriented, non-pot people.

"Typically, pot people who are on marijuana will always be driving the
speed limit, and they'll be less aggressive, and they'll be more
defensive," Emery told me yesterday. "And this is what we consider an
ideal driver."

Emery, 46, says he's never been in an accident. And he's been driving
since he was 16 -- "many, many, many hundreds of times," he says,
under the influence of marijuana.

However, I believe that, like many pot-using B.C. drivers, Emery is in
serious denial. So does B.C. Solicitor-General Rich Coleman, a former
cop.

"Having seen people who have smoked a fair amount of dope, I don't
think you could ever describe them as not being impaired," Coleman
told me yesterday. "So for him [Emery] to make that comment, I think,
is somewhat in dreamland as far as the toxicology is concerned."

So does Uncle Sam. In a U.S government-financed study, The National
Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University states
categorically that marijuana has adverse effects on the skills needed
for safe driving.

"An impaired driver is a dangerous driver who should not be on the
road," it says in a recent report stacked with references.

"In fact, people smoking marijuana show the same lack of coordination
on standard drunk driving tests as do people who have had too much to
drink." The report adds: "Second only to alcohol, marijuana is the
drug most detected in impaired drivers, fatally injured drivers and
motor vehicle crash victims."

Now, you will say, how typical of you, Jon, to be siding with the
pot-phobic Yanks at the expense of our homegrown B.C. product. Common
sense, though, should tell one this: Pot-smoking may be good for the
nerves, but it's terrible for the brain and other key parts of the
anatomy.