MAY THE LORDS BE WITH US

ON NOV. 11 - Remembrance Day, already - a committee of the British House of
Lords recommended the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes.

The Peers of the Realm in England endorsed the use of pot to treat certain
diseases and ailments - including multiple sclerosis.

Why? Because it works. It alleviates pain and suffering.

In Canada, meanwhile, we're still making criminals of MS patients who treat
themselves with pot. Just last month, MS patient Grant Krieger was
convicted on a cannabis charge in Calgary.

The Krieger conviction, so out of touch with common sense, had me wondering
about how uptight official Canada can be.

And how zealous.

Hard on the heels of the Praise-the-Lords report on marijuana, British
Columbia Health Minister Penny Priddy took on big tobacco. B.C.'s suing the
cigarette makers for addicting people and killing 6,000 British Columbians
a year.

To which I say, why not sue every industry that's making us sick -
carmakers, oil-burners, animal-slayers, sugar-cane cutters in Cuba - even
as we live longer than any generation in history.

Now, let me retreat from my rant to the ageless wisdom of the report of the
House of Lords' science and technology committee.

Not only do we learn in its pages that herbalist John Gerard (1597)
recommended pot as it "consumeth wind and drieth up seed."

Reading on, I also started to suspect that history began sometime before
Canada sent soldiers to the Boer War: "The earliest known reference to
cannabis is in Assyrian tablets of the seventh century BC. It has thus been
in use for at least 2,600 years. Like very many other herbs, it has been
used medically for a wide variety of ailments, especially throughout Asia
and the Middle East. The mild euphoria that it induces led to its use as an
intoxicant, perhaps most notably in countries where Islam prohibited the
use of alcohol."

I'm sorry, but that paragraph makes me warm and fuzzy all over. If you come
from a culture that scorns alcohol, it may well be one that embraces hemp.
Many women who campaigned in the temperance movement were sly clients of
Ladies Cordial - a polite drink laced with alcohol.

I have a friend who has never touched alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs -
and is quietly sanctimonious about it all - yet soars on black tea and
sugar cookies. (I like her too much to slag her obvious and blessed and
human hypocrisy.)

So here's my message to that Calgary court: you should have given Mr.
Krieger a break.

And here's my message to the B.C. health minister: People like to get off,
have used dubious substances for centuries, and will continue to get high
or wired or whatever. It's human nature - in all its glorious perversity -
and Ms. Priddy will not legislate it away, or get a court to rule it out of
order.

So remember what old William Blake said: "The road of excess leads to the
palace of wisdom." (As for those addicts who can't get off the road,
they're as inevitable as the road itself. For them, I recommend that the
state provide soft shoulders and a comfortable ditch stocked with air
mattresses and down sleeping bags.)

Yes, many a man has been ruined by drink. But it's just as certain (as
Mordecai Richler wrote in Bye Bye Mulroney) that "an abrupt lapse into
abstinence has led to even more of them unravelling." (The essay is from
Belling the Cat, published by Knopf Canada.)

As Richler says, Mulroney stopped drinking and ended up "changing his shirt
three times a day to mix with dozy Ronald Regan."

So there you have it. There are worse things in life than taking your
pleasures, even in a flight from pain. So enjoy, and endure.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski