TOKIN' TORY

TORONTO -- Ontario's Conservative leader used pot 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 John
Tory wrote as a law student for Obiter Dicta, the student paper of
Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.

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

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

"That was then and this is now," he said. "I'm 30 years older,
hopefully a lot wiser."

Back then, Tory said, "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."

Over the weekend, Tory toured a Toronto apartment building used as a
marijuana grow op and called on the Liberal government to push for
much tougher sentencing for grow op offences.

In his law student article, Tory 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 he still believes it's unfair to give someone 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 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."

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

Stoned 'Perceptions'

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

"Like the time I was driving down Highway 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."

Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and NDP Leader Howard Hampton have
also admitted to experimenting with marijuana or hashish as young men.