DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE

What does it mean when a politician says he has smoked marijuana? That he
sinned? That he did what everyone else around him was doing? That he had
the honesty not to duck the question?

Asked on Monday whether he had smoked the illegal substance, Canadian
Alliance leadership candidate Stockwell Day replied that he did so in his
teens and, in a reference to U.S. President Bill Clinton's risible 1992
line that he had smoked grass but not inhaled, specified that "I did
inhale." So he knew how to use it, then, which speaks to his mechanical
prowess.

Considering that the 49-year-old Mr. Day came of age in the late 1960s and
went to high school in Ottawa and university in Victoria, it would have
been surprising had he not indulged. It is a standing paradox that while
our criminal law (currently the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act)
stipulates imprisonment or fines for Canadians convicted of possessing
marijuana, it is difficult to find anyone in Mr. Day's age group who,
having had the opportunity, did not experiment with cannabis or engage in
casual use. This sets him apart from such opponents as Preston Manning
(born 1942) and Jean Chretien (born 1934), who had less opportunity and say
they have not toked up.

Politically, what is the fallout from such an admission?

Mr. Day was an excellent target for the question because so much of his
identity is grounded in his social conservatism, and the hypocrisy meter is
ever ready to detect public figures who preach one lesson and practise
another. He answered the question with one eye on his supporters; he felt
confident they would see his drug use in the context of "30 years ago and
high school and early university, what a lot of kids were doing, including
myself." Asked to advise teens today, he said, "It's best left alone,
that's what I think." (It's certainly a drug of a different magnitude
today, with a psychoactive THC content of 15 or 20 per cent rather than the
2 or 3 per cent of old.)

As Mr. Day relies on his core of followers to temper severity with mercy,
so he may also expect a softening among those -- particularly the half of
Canadians who support decriminalizing possession of marijuana -- to whom
experimenting with cannabis is no more than a rite of passage. They may see
it as a crack in Mr. Day's image of pious granite, and perhaps a signal of
flexibility of spirit.

By the same token, Mr. Day doubtless offers up regular thanks that he has
no criminal record, a stroke of fortune that sets him apart from many
fellow potheads for whom even a $25 fine was accompanied by a stigma that
still makes it hard for them to travel abroad. Of such close shaves is
humility born, and empathy with those who haven't had the same breaks. Mr.
Day will no doubt thank us for saying so.