LIGHT UP THE YOUTH WITH MANNINGMANIA

A Joint Campaign Promise Could Revitalize The Reform Party

I awoke from a nightmare at 3 a.m. last night. I would prefer to keep its
terrifying revelation secret, but honour compels me to pass it on. Anybody
who has ever glimpsed a Reform party coven on TV understands that most of
Preston's followers are what my daughter calls cottontops, that is to say,
people in their 60s.

My nightmare revealed how the foundering Reformers, currently trailing even
Joe Clark's decimated platoons in the polls, could gather unto themselves
this country's vibrant youth, regardless of their language, religion, or
sexual proclivities. Yes, I speak of Manningmania. But first I am obliged
to deal with a received truth. No, a travesty.

Uninformed people commonly assume that our Senate is the last refuge of
windbags, superannuated bagmen from both major political parties, and
social climbers who think that, once appointed to the chamber, they are
more likely to get reservations at The Four Seasons, in New York, or The
Ivy, in London, as know-nothing foreigners would consider their titles
important rather than a stigma.

To be fair, the Senate also includes such a dedicated man as the amicable
John Lynch-Staunton, the Tory leader. And a visionary senator I had never
heard of before, Tory Pierre Claude Nolin. The forthright Senator Nolin,
who admits that he once smoked marijuana, recently launched a long-overdue
effort to legalize the drug. His commonsense stance is supported by the
Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who claim their position is
backed in turn by the RCMP.

The prescient Diane Riley, a University of Toronto drug maven, noted, in a
63-page report, that the harmful social effects generated by the
criminalization of drugs, such as crime, violence and an underground trade,
are greater than the negative aspects of personal drug use. On the other
hand, I must allow that making it legal could cut into the supplementary
income of underpaid police forces here, there, and everywhere. It would
also impact on the money-laundering business.

Unlawful as it may still be today, marijuana, in my experience, is readily
available in just about any bar I have ever frequented in Montreal,
Toronto, or the Eastern Townships; not that I, a father of five, would ever
indulge. Certainly not in a town where chopped chicken liver can also be had.

Item: Late one night in a Townships watering hole, I found myself seated
next to a young man of my acquaintance, and offered him a drink.

"Sorry," he said, "Can't right now. Got to go to the drugstore."

"But no drugstore is open at this hour."

"Mine is," he said.

I should hastily add this young man is a typically ambitious, hard-working
Townshipper. True, he hibernates in winter, but all summer long, his
trailer filled with necessary implements, he mows lawns and prunes trees.
"Could you take care of my lawn?" I once asked.

"Christ," he said, sighing. "I've got three days work a week already. I
just can't take on any more, Mort."

On the evidence, marijuana is less harmful to the lungs or liver than the
drugs I'm addicted to, cigars and single malt scotch. And should anybody
doubt my expertise in this matter, which is understandable, it is worth
noting that The Lancet, the most prestigious of British medical journals,
has also called for a "new approach" to cannabis, pointing out that it was
"less of a threat to health than alcohol or tobacco." Furthermore, it is
not true that users are likely to move on to heroin, as has been suggested
by Reform's House leader, B.C. MP Randy White, who ventured that
legalization would lead to wider drug use. "It's the start of a slope," he
said.

For politicians, who tax both liquor and tobacco heavily, to take a moral
position on marijuana is unacceptable hypocrisy. And surely even those
dimwits must grasp by now that a trade that yields an estimated $18-billion
annually in Canada would produce a tax bonanza once made legal.

Which brings me to Preston Manning and his fulminating band. Manning is now
riding what George Bush once dubbed The Big Mo. His Desperate Alternative
inspiration has won the unqualified support of 788 voters in Manitoba; 299
in New Brunswick; 43 in Newfoundland; 78 in Quebec; 681 in Saskatchewan
(most of them Saskatooners); and 30 in the Territories. Riding this tidal
wave, Manning should now reach out to disaffected youth.

As things stand, most youngsters regard Manning as a nerdy little guy with
a squeaky voice, his groovy new hairstyle and polished chompers
notwithstanding. But what if he turned up on CBC-TV's The National one
night, dragging on a joint, and said, "Look here, dudes, the time has come
to legalize the weed."

To come clean, I have a personal stake in this matter. I suspect that my
hard-working sons are given to the occasional lapse into reefer madness. I
believe they fancy a joint more often than they stop at the corner candy
store to pick up a nut-milk chocolate bar, and I long for them to cease
being lawbreakers.

Listen up, Preston:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads to
fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries."

Go for it, Preston. Blindside Jean and Joe. Demand that pot be legalized
and sweep the country.