HEADSHOP OWNER CALLS BILL A JOKE

Planned Marijuana Legislation A Giant Step Back, He Says

Mike Foster makes no bones about it. He smokes marijuana. Every day.

Except when he forgets.

"Hey, it's a joke," he says. "Honestly, my memory is pretty good. I rarely
forget to smoke pot."

Mr. Foster is the owner of Crosstown Traffic, one of the largest headshops
in Ottawa, and he says he has smoked marijuana in a fairly committed
fashion for a little more than 30 years, since back when he was a teenager
living in Kingston, before he moved to Ottawa in 1975 in search of the
fabled "good government job."

He found the job. Kept it for more than a decade. Hated it.

And so he opened Crosstown Traffic 11 years ago, as a record and comic
store with a small display case at the cash for rolling papers and water
pipes. The display case grew and grew, until it has now become the store.

I ask how his current line of work compares with toiling for the Department
of Energy, Mines and Resources. He can't stop laughing

"Oh hell, it's a lot more money. You have no idea."

Mr. Foster is 48, with long, greying hair and glasses; a caricature of him
in the back of a comic book published in Ottawa and titled Mommy's Funny
Medicine has him looking like a young John Sebastian, standing in front of
his store and waving.

Although as mid-life career changes go, becoming a headshop proprietor,
medicinal marijuana advocate, dirty comic book purveyor and unabashed civil
libertarian seems to be working out well for Mr. Foster. He does indeed
look young.

"Oh, I'm much happier now," he says, standing behind the counter of his
store, framed by posters of Che Guevara and ready-to-harvest marijuana
plants. "I have low blood pressure and no stress. I think pot is healthy
for you, in more ways than we've even begun to suspect."

Anyway, with the predictable debate starting to rage over the federal
government's introduction of its marijuana reforms yesterday, Mr. Foster
wanted to add his voice to the discussion. For the record, he's not happy
either.

A joke. A total joke.

Do you think this legislation is going to solve the problems? Here, he's
got a magic water pipe he can sell you. Some Indian princess did
incantations over it or something.

Listen to Mr. Foster grouse at the government for the way it has handled
this file, and you'd think you were listening to an irate Alliance MP.

But he's dead serious. He sees the government's proposed legislation --
which decriminalizes possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana, but
stiffens the penalties for growing the plant -- as a giant step backwards
for people such as him, who see marijuana as a herb that should be thrown
into the garden next to the basil and the mint.

Why not? Only government, history and man's need for rules have made
marijuana a crime. And now we will have more rules. Begetting more problems.

"A runt of a (marijuana) plant is going to give you an ounce," he says,
bopping up and down on his running shoes, surprised the government's work
hasn't revealed the obvious.

"How can you grow pot and not have more than 15 grams? It's impossible.

"This legislation means people will have to continue buying commercially
grown pot. That means buying pesticide-ridden biker pot. Thanks to the
government, we've sanctioned marijuana as an ongoing criminal operation."

And if that doesn't bug you, then there's the damn tickets!

"Right now, most cops will look the other way at simple possession cases
because as a criminal charge it doesn't justify the time and paperwork,"
says Mr. Foster. "But if it's just a matter of handing out a ticket, what's
stopping them?"

So he's not impressed. And although he thinks the legislation may have been
well-intentioned, it is just another case of government leaders knowing
very little about the people they govern.

Look at what happened at Crosstown Traffic. He was going to retire and run
a quiet, little record store; but because he sold rolling papers, and
didn't look down his nose at the people who bought them, his entire
business changed.

He runs a prosperous business today. Pays his taxes. Contributes to
charity. Has a near constant stream of traffic through the store, from
university students to businessmen on lunch, the sort of walk-through
traffic a fast-food store would envy.

The absurdity of treating marijuana cultivation as a criminal offence, Mr.
Foster argues he sees it every day. Too many people have discovered the
truth. It is one of those hypothetical law-school situations now, when
students debate whether continued, hardline enforcement of the law will
bring disrepute on the legal system.

Yes, says Mr. Foster. A resounding yes.

"The government should get out of the morals business," says Mr. Foster.
"It is nothing but trouble every time they try it."