OH CANNABA!

Well hip-hip hooray! According to a recent UN report, Canada has more
weed smokers as a percentage of their population than any other
industrialized nation. And yes, that includes the Netherlands, where
they pretty much invented pot and where you need a degree in
architecture and a minor in structural design to roll their overly
complex joints.

Personally, I don't get it. As someone who never smoked a joint
before eight months ago (wait, does opium count?), I am certainly no
expert on weed-smoking by any stretch. In fact, I've only smoked weed
three times in my life. I'm not sure why, really. Maybe it's because
even though I was a nerd, I found the whole weed culture even
nerdier. I mean, bongs? C'mon dude, I want to get high, not suck on
some weird science experiment that looks like a penis enlarger filled
with ass water.

But hey, Canada seems to like it, so who am I to judge? 16.8 per cent
of us aged 15-64 can't be wrong, can we?

Well, at least we're not number one in the world. No, we're only
fifth, after Zambia. That's right, we're just behind a country where
86 per cent live below the poverty line and life expectancy is only
38 years. Jesus. At least Zambians have a reason to blaze 24-7. Um,
what's our excuse again? Is it to forget that we came up with e-Talk Daily?

And it's not as if we didn't already have an image problem. We've
already had to deal with nation-branding expert Simon Anholt calling
Canada boring, and Herouxville, Quebec, proudly announcing to new
immigrants that they "don't stone women here." Great. Now we're going
to be known as a nation of boring racists who like to get blunted.

And it also doesn't help that this past weekend over a dozen families
visiting for Montreal's 14th annual International Fastpitch Softball
Championship reported their luxury vehicles stolen. Tournament games
were played in seven parks in and around Montreal and cars were
stolen from six of the venues, as well as from hotel parking lots
where the families were staying. So now we're a mosaic of boring,
racist, stoned dudes that will also steal your car. Awesome! Now all
Canada has to do is borrow money that we never pay back and stay at
home every weekend and watch Simpsons reruns and jerk off to Internet
porn and we'll be the worst boyfriend ever.

Wait. Maybe we can turn this frown upside down? Perhaps this whole
pot-smoking thing is just what we need to boost our tourism. Why
don't we take a lesson from Minto, Ontario, who have taken a negative
stereotype and turned it into a positive and just hosted their second
annual Canadian Redneck Games--complete with toilet seat toss (aka
"redneck horseshoes") and a bobbing for pigs' feet competition? Why
don't we use our new stoner image to our advantage? Maybe we can
finally put all those Canadian flags with pot leafs that have been
languishing next to jewel-encrusted skull-bongs in headshops across
the country to good use? Perhaps we could use the classic high school
graffiti "Thank you for not pot smoking" as our new national slogan?

I mean, it does only make sense that we're the industrialized world's
leading chronics. How else do you explain Cirque du Soleil?
Motherfuckers have to be high off their ass to come up with that. And
what about Ruffles All-Dressed Chips (available only in Canada, btw)?
The only way you could possibly invent/enjoy that is if you are
completely stoned out of your gourd.

What am I saying, the Canadian Tourism Commission would never go for
that. Well, I guess the good news is that at least a new study shows
that cigarette smoking is down for Canadian teenagers. In fact, we
have the lowest percentage of daily smokers than any other
industrialized country. That's great! Except they just found out that
cigarette smoking helps ward off Parkinson's... so that's... bad?
Damn, why can't we ever catch a break?