BREAK IT TO MY GRANDMA

Flavoured rolling papers banned in Canada? Really?

On June 17, 2009, Bill C-32 quietly passed through the House of
Commons, amending the Tobacco Act "to provide additional protection to
youth from tobacco marketing." This followed Prime Minister Stephen
Harper's 2008 election promise to ban "fruit or candy-flavoured
cigarillos" in Canadian stores. "These products," Harper told anyone
who would listen, "are packaged as a candy, and this is totally
unacceptable."

Rationally unacceptable themselves, the amendments, which have only to
pass through Senate before taking effect on the streets sometime
around December, target "flavoured cigarillos" (Prime Times, for
example), as well as other products "targeting youth" like flavoured
rolling papers and "blunt wraps." Bill C-32 passed through the house
easily, as it would have been hard for anyone to take a public stand
against "protecting youth" from the big-bad tobacco boogeyman, no
matter how ineffectual the actual legislation.

This tough-talk on "protecting youth from tobacco marketing" comes
from the same man who proposed, during the same campaign, that keeping
"junkies in rehab and off the streets" was a valid way to combat drug
addiction in Canada. In his years in office, if nothing else, Harper
has consistently chosen the one-two punch of flamboyant public
displays of verbal platitudes and stomach-churning photo opportunities
over actual action at every opportunity. Case in point: his apology to
residential school survivors at home in 2008 followed by his denial of
Canada's colonial history abroad last month.

So, what's the big deal? A weird niche market has been eliminated by a
drab piece of social conservative legislation. Surely there are bigger
fish to fry. Bill C-32 is a waste of time and an insult to adults and
children alike that won't solve anything, but rather imposes social
conservative values on the "free market" that fiscal conservatives
value so highly.

Ask yourself, please: will banning flavoured rolling papers or cigars
stop kids from smoking? Of course not. First of all, it is illegal to
sell them to minors as it is. Anyone selling tobacco products in
Canada is legally obliged to ask for photo ID from anyone trying to
buy said products who even appears to be under the age of 25. Does
this happen all the time? No. Does it happen often? Yes, it does. Will
kids, if at first they don't succeed, try again, somewhere and
somehow, to achieve their devious ends?

Certainly. Kids will always do things they aren't supposed to do, for
no other reason than that they aren't supposed to do them. Besides, if
a 12-year old kid somehow gets hold of flavoured rolling papers, and
can use them properly, that kid is likely dealing with far more
pressing social concerns than the fact that maybe his papers taste
like blueberries rather than regular old paper. Where did that kid
learn how to roll, and where did he get the papers, the weed, tobacco,
whatever? Where are his parents?

Regardless of what Harper would have us believe, the majority of
people consuming these nearly banned products are adults, fully
capable of making their own decisions, however untoward they may be to
the social conservatives' idealized Dominion under God.

Why should Harper - who appeared on TV recently to tell us how he
"gets high with a little help from his friends," though, I suppose,
not with flavoured rolling papers - tell me what I can or cannot wrap
my dope or tobacco, or whatever, in? Who's to tell any adult they
can't enjoy something as insignificant as a flavoured cigar on their
personal time? You?

Let's say - hypothetically, of course - that an upstanding citizen
like, say, Burton Cummings, who recently received honourary membership
to the University of Manitoba Dental Alumni Association, wanted to
smoke whatever it is he, as an adult, chooses to smoke wrapped up in
banana flavoured rolling papers. Now, I've never been much on
religion, but in my mind Burt stands tall, not only as an undeniable
Canadian rock-god, but as a pillar of the community. If he -
hypothetically - chooses to smoke banana flavoured rolling papers, who
am I to tell him he can't, because some day some kid might want to try
smoking evil weeds because that kid thought, somehow, that smoke could
taste like magical candy bananas?

Not me. Fuck no. I'm thinking about it now, and I'm terrified. But,
the prime minister is obviously of another mind: he's already done
it.

What I, personally, would like to see is Harper's legislative
throw-down acted out in real time, in an alley behind the Albert in
the earliest hours of the morning. Sirens wail in the background,
steam rises from piss-soaked concrete. Harper, now, would have to
physically wrestle a carton of banana flavoured rolling papers from
the hands of Burton Cummings, who I imagine would croon "Charlemagne"
while mercilessly trouncing poor Steve in the ensuing bloodbath. Hell,
if they held it at the MTS Centre, there would be a full house, and
I'd be there, front row.

I spoke recently with my friend Francis about this business. At the
time, I was mildly confused by it all, and not altogether as insulted
as I now feel. Francis, on the other hand, was livid.

"Where is the line drawn?" he asked, crushing an empty Bud Light Lime
in his fist. "Flavoured booze? What the fuck, no more peach vodka?"
Francis turned nasty at that point, muttering on about impaling and
bashing elected officials. Francis was my ride home. My night was ruined.

But his question remains: "Where is the line drawn?" If adults are not
allowed to make their own choices, good, bad, or in-between, but are
instead legislated into following a rigid concept of optimized social
behavior, then what the fuck is the point of being an adult?

That kids will think smoking, or drinking, or drugs are cool and will
want to try them should be old news, by now. Making costly rules to
deter them from doing what they will instinctively do - rebel - won't
solve anything. And really, isn't there anything else our elected
officials could possibly be spending time and tax dollars on at this
particular moment in time? Anything? Swine flu? The economy?
Afghanistan? Social inequality? The environment? Education?

Flavoured rolling papers? Really?

Sheldon Birnie cannot believe that flavoured rolling papers will be
illegal, but salvia divinorum is still legally available for sale.
Check it out!