DAY COMES OUT SMOKIN'

I inhaled, and I'm not running for office. Stockwell Day did, and he is.

Far out, man.

That's the cool thing about Canada -- most voters don't care what kind of
cloud you were under 25 or 30 years ago. Whether you floated from the
free-standing fog of the 1970s or crashed and crawled away, it's all in the
past, man.

Ralph Klein tried the mighty weed. It made him so anxious that he vowed
never to touch it again.

"Many years ago, when I was a reporter, I had the odd joint. It made me so
paranoid that I decided I didn't need to be more paranoid. That was it."
Klein told me. "And, yes, I inhaled."

The premier opted for politics instead.

Stock Day smoked it. So did John Lord, our feisty Ward 8 alderman, Bev
Longstaff from Ward 7, and Rod Love, Day's political fixer.

Maybe Bill Clinton should have inhaled -- or chewed a few magic brownies.

Lots of others did, and years later they look for magic in politics, not
brownies. The similarity between the two is so, well, groovy.

Both bring on the sense of enlightenment and power. Both make you feel like
you can do anything, anywhere. Both foster false hope and self-delusion.
Both distort reality. Both break the ordinary limits of time and space.
Both induce massive paranoia. And when it's all over, both snap the user
back to basics.

That's pot, the perfect political companion.

"I was certainly known as a bit of a rebel as a teenager," Lord laughs. "I
had long hair, which was unusual in a farm community."

"Yes, I did smoke a joint two or three times, but I didn't like it. I don't
see much point to it -- then or now."

Good Lord!

Lord was the leader of a rock and roll band called The Heavy Metal Light
Show. He played key boards, bass and rhythm guitar, anything that kept him
from actually doing any work on the farm.

"I was living every teenager's dream, and it certainly worked well with the
young ladies," he chuckles. "My life's been kind of boring since then."

Hardly. Today, Lord's one of the busiest aldermen around, juggling his
business and political careers with running for the provincial Conservative
nomination in Calgary Currie.

To my pot query, Bev Longstaff says: "I have to confess I did -- just once
in awhile.I didn't get into it very much." She also ironed her hair --
didn't we all?

I caught up with political guru Rod Love, who is stick-handling Stock Day's
Canadian Alliance leadership campaign. He spilled the dope.

"Of course I did," he shouts into the receiver, and then offers his catch
of the day.

"Canadians should not be asking themselves what Stockwell Day was smoking
30 years ago. They should be asking themselves what the Prime Minister was
taking last week in the Middle East."

Scary, man.

At least we know what Day was taking -- truth serum.

In the U.S., his political career would be over. If he were running as a
religious conservative candidate, Day would be absolutely finished.
American moralism and self-righteousness turn the slightest peccadillo into
mortal fodder.

American President Bill Clinton was vilified for months over his waffling
on reefer madness. He smoked, but didn't inhale. Hello, Monica. Little did
Clinton know that that line would turn into his lasting image on the world
stage.

At least in Canada we tend to be more honest, and maybe more forgiving.
There were a few people who didn't want me chronicalling any hints of
marijuana in their past. Mothers are still quick with a tongue-lashing,
even 25 years later.

Day turns out to be like most baby-boomers who tried grass, pot, weed,
whatever, and then just moved on to adulthood.

Don't you love his wedding picture? It's the epitome of the seventies
zeitgeist. Big glasses, big hair, big hat. And his wife Val -- big eyes,
big smile, big blonde hair -- the ethereal beauty who looks like she just
floated in from the set of Elvira Madigan.

My brother's wedding pictures look the same, and so do yours if you married
in the seventies. Forget the marijuana, man. You can get the high just by
looking at these snapshots.

Reach Sydney Sharpe at 235-7134 or e-mail to sharpes@theherald.southam.ca