WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S CHANGE

"I can't do it," the prospective juror said. It happened in Missoula,
Mont., this month and the state's case against a small-time pot dealer
fell apart as prosecutors watched in dismay. One after another,
citizens told the court that marijuana was no big deal and as long as
it wasn't "a pound or a truckload," it was wrong to jail a man for
having it.

For once, the domino theory proved true; the collapse of one part of
the system threatens the rest. If you have to exclude a third of the
population -- the ones who think pot is on a higher moral plane than
coffee -- then it's hardly a jury of your peers, which brings the whole
concept of jury trials into question, and thus many marijuana
prosecutions. That then takes Americans to an unfamiliar sunlit upland
where jail is considered overly harsh, the three-strikes felony laws
are a running sore and countless thousands of inmates convicted of
minor drug crimes deserve to be released in the new year.

The legalization of marijuana is inevitable, especially in a country
cursed by methamphetamine cooking and snorting. If jurors in Illinois
can acquit a Vietnam veteran who had 25 pounds of pot and 50 pounds of
plants in his house and then gather round him to give him a hug, as
happened this year, Americans are almost there. As LaSalle County
goes, so goes the nation.

Here in Canada, the mood is one of embarrassment. The Conservatives
long ago hitched their little wagon to George W. Bush's tiny star and
we are a decade behind the times. Not only is Ottawa still trying to
close a safe-injection drug centre in downtown Vancouver, it is
planning to spend $9 billion on new jails.

Canadians simply are not violent enough to fill those jails,
statistics show. We're getting progressively more peaceful. So drug
users and dealers are a big target market for Conservative
tough-on-crimers. It's an ideology thing.

But strangely, people who use the nastiest drug of all, alcohol, are
home-free. The angry old white guys who are the beating heart of the
Conservative party are drinkers, and not charming ones like Rooster
Cogburn in True Grit. Regular Canadians smoke pot and smile
beatifically. As always, Conservatives get everything upside down.

I write this as New Year's Eve approaches, the biggest drinking night
there is. We drink lavishly, not with the same sense of purpose that
Brits do, and not armed as Americans tend to. (But when we get sick on
the sidewalk, it freezes and stays there till March. This is no small
drawback in this cold country, especially when it's pasta.) And we
don't know when to stop, we are hateful, and horribly ill the next
day, but that's okay because alcohol is a normalized drug and pot
isn't, not yet.

How I wish Canadians who need a night off from their own head could
legally smoke dope this New Year's Eve instead of drinking themselves
faceless. (Confession: I quit smoking pot decades ago. I miss it.)
Wouldn't it be a pleasure to sit around with The Dude-like friends
and stare at the tree quietly shedding its needles and the ornaments
thumping as they slip off the drying branches. Months pass. And then
we'd get inflamed over leftover goose skin and those President's
Choice thingies, chocolate or chicken tikka, it's all the same
deliciousness. We could gaze rapt at the fireplace. It need not have
a fire in it.

I have a neighbour who is an alcoholic of 50 years standing and it
isn't pleasant to see or hear. Think of the physical damage of a
half-century of gin, the health-care costs, the stricken children, the
bad smells, a life all over but the shouting. I'd have preferred
decades of pot smoke drifting out over the lake, and probably so would
she, given the choice.

Perhaps one day we'll have that choice.