HEMP MASCOT GETS MARCHING ORDERS

Thank goodness for the police. If not for them, the good folks of Regina
might have succumbed to reefer madness in all its twisted forms. Only
through canny forethought and quick action the other day did the defenders
of law and order in the Queen City manage to maintain the moral character of
our capital city.

It was a near thing, I tell you. There, in the annual Buffalo Days parade,
in broad daylight no less, was the manifestation of a hemp plant, standing
four metres high.

Horrors. Such a thing could be mistaken for the city fathers endorsing drug
use. Can't be allowed. It might detract from the more wholesome family image
portrayed by a four-metre beer can, for example.

The problem is Headly the Hemp leaf is not representative of the gateway
drug the police like to call marijuana. Hemp is a legal product that
contains only trace amounts of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that
makes you high.

Thus, the man behind the leaf, Tim Selenski, 22, is just the same as any
other businessman trying to make a living out of the retail market. He was
out there in the parade dressed in a funny-looking suit in an effort to
promote his retail hemp business, no different from the guy in the suit for
Hillybilly Vac Shack. Well, maybe a little different. The parade marshal
didn't kick the vac shack mascot out of the parade. Nor did the cops chase
him down and tell him to take the suit off.

Selenski was on his way back to his shop, called Head to Head Novelties,
after getting kicked out of the parade. He had his permit, but the parade
marshal changed his mind about Headly the Hemp leaf after getting some
complaints about a marijuana leaf walking down the street.

Here's how Selenski tells it.

"At first I didn't see them running after me, because I was just putting on
a show for the kids and the people, and they were all loving it. So I was
running and I can't see anybody behind me. I didn't know there was two
police officers chasing me. That would have been hilarious to get a picture
of two cops chasing this 12-foot leaf down the street. One guy shoved me in
the shoulder to get me to stop running and he said 'take that off right
now.' "

"It's a $2,000 suit," Selenski says.

"You can't get out of it by yourself, so I started getting angry, because
I'm not one to get along with police officers very well, so I start shoving
to get out of this thing, because you're strapped right inside of it. This
thing's got huge leaves. And I accidentally bumped the one police officer on
the shoulder and he got quite angry with me, and took down my name and
threatened to give me a ticket for something. He said it was a public
disturbance of some kind."

Where's Bob Mitchell when you need him?

You'd think the new police complaints commissioner would want a piece of
this.

If you went to a Buffalo Days parade dressed as a wheat sheaf, they'd give
you a medal. But show up promoting an opportunity for economic
diversification, and you're labelled a disturbance. What the parade marshals
and police of Regina don't seem to understand is that hemp is a legal
product sold widely across Canada.

You can buy all kinds of hemp products over the counter, from hemp enriched
shampoos, to hand and body lotion, to hemp coffee, hemp flour and hemp seed
oil.

In his shop, Selenski sells hemp clothing produced mainly in Canada, as well
as a variety of foodstuffs, including suckers.

"You name it, they make it. They just came out with a chicken burger made
with hemp that they're trying to get in Safeway," Selenski said. "So it's
becoming part of the regular market, but just not enough people in Canada
are growing it to get into the papers," he said.

It is in the history books however. As far back as 1709, hemp was seen as
part of the answer to economic growth in Canada. In the Key Porter book
Hemp, author Mark Bourrie quotes a letter from a colonial intendant to a
colony minister describing local farmers' progress.

"It is true, monseigneur, that the colony of Canada, after having cost so
much to His Majesty, is of very little use. This situation is attributable
to the disorderliness of the inhabitants and the great value of the beaver
pelts. The inhabitants of this country are now starting to see the error of
their ways. They are cultivating their lands, and making hemp and linens;
and if they are encouraged to stay this course, they will ultimately make
this country useful to France . . . "

Most of the rest of the country has long since moved on, but it would seem
that Regina still embraces the beaver pelt mentality. Push whatever you want
at Buffalo Days, just so long as it isn't hemp.

You'll be destroying the moral, er, fibre of our youth, don't you know.