RIGHT-WING REEFER

John Tory Admits Smoking Up In Youth, Even Favouring Lenience

Conservative Leader John Tory used marijuana as a high school and
university student, once favoured lighter sentences for pot
traffickers and even drove while "stoned."

The revelations are contained in a 30-year-old newspaper column that
Tory wrote as a law student for Obiter Dicta, the official student
newspaper of Osgoode Hall Law School.

A copy of the article was provided to the Sun by a Liberal source.

Tory, 52, said in an interview yesterday that he was writing honestly
about his experiences with weed, but he hasn't used it since those early days.

"That was then and this is now," he said. "I'm 30 years older,
hopefully a lot wiser. I think these are experiences that kids often
have that help them to learn lessons and shape their attitudes when
they get older."

Over the weekend, Tory toured a Jane St. apartment building that was
used as a marijuana grow-op and called on the Ontario government to
push for much tougher sentencing for grow-op offences.

In his law student article, Tory said that he favoured
decriminalization of pot, thought it was "absurd" to throw marijuana
traffickers in jail and even mused about selling it as a legal
product like alcohol.

Tory said yesterday that he still believes it's unfair to give
someone the stigma of a criminal record for simple possession but now
believes in tougher sentences for traffickers.

The youthful Tory wrote that he used marijuana "to some extent" in
high school and in his first year of university but hadn't touched
the stuff in several years.

"At the time, I really saw nothing wrong with it although on certain
occasions in certain circumstances I was somewhat paranoid of the
badge swooping down and carting me away," he wrote.

Tory advised his fellow student readers that while a few tokes of
marijuana "in his head anyway" didn't produce the impairment of
several drinks, it still impacted negatively on his driving.

Pot Down His Pants

"I know from stoned driving experience that it affects my depth
perceptions quite markedly," he wrote.

"Like the time I was driving down Hwy. 48 and pulled to a stop at a
stop sign which was 200 yards further down the highway. Or the time I
sat on a hotel bed in a far distant land, convinced that I couldn't
speak for more than an hour."

Tory went on to reminisce about the time he and a friend were
entering a Lake Simcoe marina with a half pound of marijuana aboard
and noticed they were being followed by another boat with a powerful
searchlight.

"I managed to persuade my accomplice not to ditch the stuff so he
stuffed it down his pants and we made it to the dock without
incident," Tory wrote.

The Conservative leader said he believes many people his age have
similar tales to tell.

"I characterize (the article) as honest observations of somebody 30
years ago," Tory said. "And at the same time I listened to Jimi
Hendrix and I had long hair that was almost down to my shoulders,
which my father was constantly telling me to get cut because I looked
like a hippie."

All three provincial leaders -- including Premier Dalton McGuinty and
NDP Leader Howard Hampton -- have admitted under previous questioning
by reporters to experimenting with pot or hashish as young men.