TOKERS MUST SMOKE LIKE CHIMNEYS TO KEEP UP WITH SENATE NUMBERS

In "Millions of Canadians inhale despite pot laws" (Journal, March 4), a
Senate report is cited as saying that about three million Canadians consume
770,000 kilograms of marijuana a year. Am I the only one who thinks that
figure is a little unlikely?

That would work out to an average of 256 grams of pot per Canadian pot
smoker per year, or about five grams per week. For those not familiar with
the effects of marijuana, let's just say that would mean 10 per cent of
Canadians are stoned out of their gourds for perhaps a third of their
waking hours. This raises the question of what sort of work they can be
doing while so stoned that still pays enough money to buy all that pot.

As a thought experiment, suppose that the 770,000-kilogram figure is
correct. Let's say one per cent of Canadians, about 300,000, smoke
absolutely heroic quantities of pot, averaging perhaps two grams a day.
That would account for about 219,000 kilograms. A more typical user would
smoke a little pot on the weekends, averaging maybe a gram per week. To
account for the remaining 551,000 kilograms, that would require fully 10.6
million Canadians, about 30 per cent of the population, to be occasional
pot users.

I couldn't say how accurate those figures might be, but surely they're
closer than the Senate's figure of only 10 per cent.

Mark Senior,

Edmonton