GOV'T AND POLICE PUSHING A NEW REEFER MADNESS

The new reefer madness is upon us, a smoking mushroom-cloud farce lit
by Vancouver police, B.C. Solicitor-General Rich Coleman and the
federal government.

Onlookers could easily be forgiven for thinking Osama bin Laden was
the target of last week's massive police storm-trooping of Commercial
Drive.

Some three dozen officers, some sporting balaclavas, others heavy
automatic weapons, running around with barricade tape in one of the
most absurd made-for-TV police shows ever recorded.

And for what? To bust the Da Kine cafe, where small quantities of
marijuana had been quietly and peacefully sold for four months from a
licensed, taxpaying business.

In one sorry swoop, the police cleverly moved marijuana sales back
into the hands of criminal street dealers and away from the clean,
safe and orderly Da Kine operation.

Police deny the raid had anything to do with snarly comments the day
before from Coleman, who demanded action because people were "buying
marijuana, smoking it, and driving away in their cars.

"People are now under the influence of something. That, to me, is
unacceptable."

Of course Coleman never thought to have police storm-troopers go out
and shut down every bar and tavern where people buy alcohol, drink it,
and drive away in their cars "under the influence of something."

Like former Montreal Canadiens hockey star Serge Savard, charged with
driving under the influence last week after allegedly smashing into
two vehicles.

Or Per Bill, the Swedish parliamentarian arrested for violence after
being "found drunk" while pushing his son's pram.

Using Coleman's logic, shouldn't all bars be closed because it is
"unacceptable" to be "under the influence of something?"

No, apparently, because there is an "acceptable" alcohol limit of .08
per cent of the bloodstream. Coleman knows about that from his days as
an RCMP officer, when he took part in a clinical study of the times it
took drinkers to reach the legal limit.

"On my drinking day," Coleman has said, "it took about 12.8 ounces of
rye and I blew [the limit] in 45 minutes."

While it is OK to drink a certain amount and still legally drive a
car, no amount of marijuana is deemed acceptable by Coleman, the
police and Ottawa.

Despite the fact that millions of Canadians use it for recreational
relaxation to little or no ill effect, marijuana continues to be
demonized and falsely lumped in with truly dangerous hard drugs heroin
and cocaine. This patent nonsense is compounded by unsubstantiated
claims from Tourism Vancouver and the Vancouver Board of Trade that
marijuana use in B.C. is harming tourism.

The lunacy of marijuana laws dates back to Canada's drug laws of the
1920s being "largely based on moral panic, racist sentiment and a
notorious absence of debate," says a 2002 Senate committee report.

Marijuana, according to Justice Mary Southin of the B.C. Court of
Appeal, "appears to be of no greater danger to society than alcohol .
. . [marijuana smokers] are no better or worse, morally or physically,
than people who like a martini."

It is time Coleman and gang heeded the wisdom of Provincial Court Judge
William Kitchen when he spoke on the Da Kine case Friday: "It seems pretty
silly these days to be held in jail for possession of marijuana."