COUGHSPITALITY SUITE

Prohibition's Profiteers Aren't Always Who You Think They Are

I'm not going to say it was easy--cripes, I nearly coughed my bra undone a
few times this week--but sometimes, as you know, I throw myself on the odd
grenade, especially when it's big, green and smoking like the Harvest Cup
was this past weekend at the newly re-opened Blunt Bros (on Hastings,
across the street from the burnt shell of their former location). As if
it's not awesome enough getting twatted in a huge old converted bank the
combined awesomeness of the people involved and their unending supply of
"spare-ijuana" (thanks to Connecticut Joel who came up with that one) was
really not to be believed.

I hope Liz, Crystal and all the behind-the-scenesters had a long nap and a
thorough sit in a comfy chair after all their hard work. Kudos, as ever.

But I'm not just here to talk about how rad the weekend was, although one
guy who's hit the gravity bong at nine Cannabis Cups said they do it up
much better here than most such events he's attended.

I'm not just here to prove I can remember a few memorable quotes that sum
it all up, such as: "you actually can smoke through your eyes, you know,"
and "I might be able to squeak a little bit more in that joint." I'm here
to talk about how ridiculous it is that honest businesspeople working for
the twin causes of agriculture and tourism are vilified as shameless
profiteers when there are far worse opportunists at play elsewhere in our
collective back yard: witness the sad, puritanical machismo (incidentally,
three common traits of reality show contestants) of Victorian homunculi
like the media whores of Growbusters. Plus, now the turgid bureaucratic
moralists at Coquitlam City Council want Hydro's help in identifying
suspected grow-ops, and frankly, there simply isn't enough Shut The Fuck Up
in the Western Hemisphere for that idea.

Nonetheless, Coquitlam Councillor Louella (yes, in 2005, there is still one
of these) Hollington's motion to compel BC Hydro to open its private
records to show "unusually high" rates of power consumption actually passed
with flying colours. "If Hydro provided the information it would save
police a lot of time and cost," Hollington justified, as quoted in The
Province, whose fearmongering "study results" on "marijuana abusers" (see
Bullshit Detector -- TC Issue 175) gave ample evidence of their "unbiased"
stand on the issues.

Reporter Kent Spencer's story not only details the Coquitlam Council's
ongoing fight to keep their neighbourhoods safe for ALL fifteen-year-old
single mothers with dark brown lipliner, but it mentions that the poor
widdle cops there "have already located more [grow-op] sites than they can
handle." Undaunted, Hollington firmly believes potential violations of
privacy laws are what the citizenry cries out for, saying, "a lot of people
wonder why Hydro is able to protect their information so well." See, I
don't know if I'd use words like "wonder why" more like "expect."

Provincial legislation's got to change in order to force Hydro to open its
files, so things might yet end in defeat for Hollington and fellow
Councillor Diane Thorne, who moans that people are actually "moving from
certain areas of Coquitlam," because of "grow-rip" jobs gone wrong.

At least, that's the case with the one family she talked to--my guess is
that the others finally realised they've been living in fucking COQUITLAM
all this time. No wonder everybody out there needs to get stoned.