TOBACCO SMOKERS HASSLED MORE THAN TOKERS

Pro-pot advocates won't agree with me, but here goes.

How can people get away with toking up inside a concert venue, in the most
intrusive jurisdiction in the Lower Mainland? Meanwhile, people can't light
up cigarettes anywhere inside a building without severe reprimands.

One of our staff members attended the Bob Dylan concert in the Orpheum
Theatre in Vancouver last week. I was told the next day that many people
lit up joints during the concert, and they were asked politely to put them
out. No other action was taken, and the same pot smokers later lit up again.

What would have happened if someone had dared to light a cigarette in that
most venerable and beloved Vancouver theatre? Would they have received a
polite rebuke, or would they have been asked to leave?

Why is there a double standard at work here? Why is it wrong to light up a
cigarette, a legal product, but all right to light up a joint? Is it
because it's a rock concert?

This whole incident illustrates the goofy Canadian attitude to marijuana.
We seem to think it's just fine to encourage people to smoke dope, while
governments are coming down heavy on the tobacco industry. There is no
doubt that smoking cigarettes does lead to cancer and other diseases. Some
studies indicate that heavy marijuana use may cause some of the same problems.

Any ingestion of smoke into the body can cause problems. That's why
firefighters have a much higher risk of getting cancer - their occupation
requires them to be exposed to smoke much more frequently than most other jobs.

I happen to agree with the ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, workplaces
and other public places. I also happen to agree with government efforts to
restrict cigarette smoking, and to try and keep cigarettes away from young
people.

At the same time, I believe that the federal and provincial governments
should be just as vigilant towards marijuana smoking. It is no better than
cigarette smoking, and it certainly leaves just as much smoke and odour as
cigarettes do.

I do believe that medicinal marijuana use makes sense. If smoking marijuana
relieves pain from chronic illness, people should be allowed to smoke it -
in their own homes. The federal government has made this legal.

Marijuana has far less effect on the body than morphine, which is given to
people in hospitals for pain relief.

However, let's end the double standard.

If you can't smoke cigarettes inside a theatre, you shouldn't be able to
light up a joint.

Frank Bucholtz is editor of the Langley Times, a sister paper of the
Abbotsford News.