WHERE THERE'S SMOKE

Sixty-five thousand people can't be wrong.

Or can they?

That is-roughly-how many Canadians voted for the Marijuana Party in the
last federal election.

Now the B.C. arm of the party (it brings new meaning to the term "grass
roots") is gearing up to be a presence in the spring provincial
election.

Conventional wisdom says voting for a party that wants to legalize pot
is a joke, a wasted ballot, an empty gesture.

It's easy for pundits to dismiss it as the ultimate lunatic fringe,
another alternative party, a collection of pothead goofs gathered around
a hopeless cause. Get it on, bang the bong.

That may well be the attitude of those who see politics and voting as
little more than a matter of bargaining for, and wielding, power-a bully
boy sport in which winning is everything and percentage of popular vote
merely the yardstick by which victory and defeat is measured.

Maybe nobody in a position of power is interested in knowing who those
65,000 voters are, or what their votes stand for.

But what of votes as a right, a form of expression? If we believe in the
principles of democracy, don't they serve also as a barometer of public
opinion, a vehicle for dissent?

Are these voters merely potheads who want to party? Are they people
looking for a legal source for a substance they consider benign? Do they
suffer ailments which might be alleviated by medical uses of marijuana?

In this age of growing frustration with our medical system, and
burgeoning alternative health treatments, we'd predict a growing number
of votes cast for the Marijuana Party for that reason alone. Obviously
the MP's braintrust senses the same, since they plan this weekend to
broaden the scope of the party's platform.

We can only assume what will be the mind-expanding exercise before that
blue-sky session...

Still, from such tiny seeds of malcontent, mighty plants have grown in
the past.

Are these malcontents who, in a broader sense, feel disenfranchised by,
and contemptuous of, big party politics?

In that case, those votes-and votes for other marginal parties and
candidates-may have something more to say about Canada's political
health than we want to recognize.