CBC SHOWS MOXIE BY HIRING 60'S CANNABIS CZAR

TORONTO - Scanning recent news releases from CBC Radio, I was happy to note
the name of Robert 'Rosie' Rowbotham. Until then I didn't even know that
Rosie was out of jail, let alone that he had become a contributing editor
to the show This Morning.

The news delighted me. Putting Rosie on the air may turn out to be one of
the CBC¹s more memorable contributions, if not to Canadian culture at least
to Canadian moxie.

Rowbotham¹s name may not mean much to younger people since he spent all but
a few weeks of the last two decades in jail. But when the 47-year-old
Rowbotham was in his late teens, he was a folk hero. Rosie, a.k.a. Le
Fluer, used to be the cannabis czar of Toronto¹s Rochdale College during
the heady days of the 1960¹s.

One difference between Rowbotham and other participants in the
counter-culture was that Rosie (so named for his jolly disposition) was an
industrious fellow. Having energy and charisma, he had things to do in
addition to love-ins and anti-war protests. He soon became on of the major
drug dealers in North America. Unlike his zombiefied customers, Rosie could
combine empire-building with tuning in and dropping out.

Rowbotham saw nothing wrong with facilitating an alternate lifestyle for
youngsters in hippie heaven. Back then, received wisdom held that drugs -
especially 'soft' drugs - were part of a new enlightenment. Commentators
with a different view had a tough time hanging onto their intellectual
licenses in Canada.

At his 1977 trial - for importing, as I recall it, a tone of hash - Rosie¹s
lawyer called the writer Norman Mailer as a character witness before
letting Rosie himself outline his justification for drug dealing in a
lengthy address to the court. The speech contained the memorable line: 'I
can't be rehabilitated.' It set a landmark in Canadian law for frankness,
if not for prudence.

Judge Stephen Borins wasn't amused and sentenced Rowbotham to 14 years.
Rosie hired himself a new lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, who managed to get the
sentence reduced to mime years. The joke going around the Ontario Court of
Appeal at the time was the Judge Borins has given Rosie eight years for his
crime, one year for his speech, and five years for his former lawyer's
defence tactics.

Rowbotham wouldn't have served 20 years years if he hadn't relapsed into
dealing whenever he was released on parole.

Even so, I've always regarded his punishment as excessive. Not just because
murderers often serve less than 20 years, but because a man ought not to be
locked up for two decades for taking the spirit of his times too seriously.
Rowbotham only practiced what many leading lights were preaching in those
days.

Anyone looking at the LeDain Commissions¹s 1973 report on the non-medical
use of drugs might note that Rosie's views on marijuana were not all that
different from the Hon. Gerald Le Dain¹s.

Rosie went to jail, while pundits of the cultural climate that inspired him
went on to major careers in the media, the government and the law. I know
at least two of Rosie's ex-clients who became recipients of the Order of
Canada. I¹m glad that our public broadcasting system, itself not untouched
by the counter-culture at the time, decided to offer Rosie a career
opportunity.

At least he has charm and pluck. which is more than one can say of some
on-air personalities.

Another CBC program that airs this month.....