LIGHTEN UP ON POT GROWERS, CANADA'S ON A ROLL

An increasingly common greeting among Canadians abroad, I've observed in
recent years, is the knowing wink and the universal sign language for
"puff, puff."

It's been a fairly common greeting for this Canadian abroad, in any case.

And while I confess the occasional dim glaze in my eyes might betray an
affinity for certain untoward habits, I'm not given to wearing Phish
tie-dyes, flip-flops, a long beard or other signifiers of the "stoner"
species when travelling outside the country -- especially when travelling
outside the country involves going anywhere near the United States. A
crewcut, a Bible and a Stars-'n'-Stripes lapel pin are best advised these
days, unless you fancy a date with a rubber glove and a ticket to
Guantanamo Bay.

I am thus forced to conclude there's a grain of truth to this talk of
Canada being one of the world's largest exporters of marijuana.

Hard to quantify this sort of thing, of course, since there aren't a lot of
records kept and police and customs officials tend to exaggerate "seizure"
statistics for their own purposes. But I do know of a great deal of
anecdotal international evidence to support the claim that Canada produces
really good weed. And the size and scale of the two massive grow operations
uncovered in Barrie last week suggest that the amount of pot being produced
in southern Ontario far outstrips local demand.

Still, let's be honest, it's better to be known for exporting weed than for
exporting troops, high-tech military hardware and political xenophobia,
isn't it?

This is why I disagree with the observations of folks like CTV's Lloyd
Robertson, who early last week proclaimed on the evening newscast that this
was "the growth industry our country doesn't need" and a trend sending our
national reputation "up in smoke." Same with the police spin on the matter,
which asserts that marijuana usage and production in this country are at
"epidemic" proportions and that the best solution is to ratchet up the
legal penalties -- and, as usual, to put more cops on the beat to deal with
the scourge.

I even disagree with the Liberal government's current, tentatively
permissive stance on pot, which isn't that permissive, really.

The marijuana-reform legislation left in Prime Minister Paul Martin's hands
by Jean Chretien might propose imposing a small fine only for possession of
small amounts of pot, but it also falls right in line with hard-line police
demands when it comes to growing and trafficking.

Just let it go, folks. Have the guts to admit that the nearly century-long
effort to persuade the average Canadian of marijuana's evils has been
buried by its inherent inability to be particularly evil. It's somewhat
counterproductive, certainly, probably best not used in tandem with a motor
vehicle or heavy machinery, and not exactly great for your health (inhaling
smoke of any kind rarely is). But neither is beer -- the product that was
previously made, legally and taxably and according to government standards,
in the Molson Brewery site where the largest marijuana cache in Canadian
history was unearthed last weekend.

Our farmers are chronically disenchanted, several of our fisheries have no
fish and the cattle industry is about to nosedive; here, we have a
lucrative cash crop that'll grow in ditches.

But if we don't have the legislative guts to acknowledge the relative
harmlessness of legalized marijuana -- "legal" tobacco is responsible for
71 per cent of the world's seven million annual "drug-related deaths,"
according to the Swiss Addiction Research Institute, while alcohol takes
care of another 26 per cent -- and to establish some kind of
state-monitored apparatus for getting our huge pot crop to consumers, then
let's at least agree to informally look the other way so a sizeable chunk
of the population can go about its daily business of buying, selling and
growing pot without fear of legal reprisal. It's obviously not discouraging
anyone, anyway.

True, the U.S. government is something of an obstacle. This is an
administration so hung up on its wholly disastrous War on Drugs that it's
willing to unleash a "pathogenic fungus fusarium oxysporum" -- essentially
one of those biological weapons the Americans were supposed to find in Iraq
- -- on coca crops in Colombia, untested and with no thought for the local
health or agricultural consequences, to arrest the flow of cocaine through
its borders. The White House stopped making sense about drugs a long time ago.

There's no better way to teach than by example, though. If the streets of a
marijuana-friendly Canada aren't regularly strafed by gunfire and peopled
with zombified heroin addicts lured through the weed "gateway" in five or
10 years, and instead are just a bit mellower, maaan, than they were
before, the States and others of that mindset will have precious little
ammunition for anti-pot policies.

There's already a growing chorus of Americans who think their country might
benefit from being a little more like its neighbour to the north.

"Those crazy Canadians. They're so gay! As they should be. Really, why
wouldn't you be gay if you were Canadian? You've got good music television,
socialized medicine, legal marijuana, homosexual marriage and a government
that's not insane," remarked a Village Voice writer last August -- somewhat
erroneously, but with heart in the right place -- in a piece on Toronto's
"gay church folk orchestra" the Hidden Cameras. "Man, if I lived in Canada
right now, I'd be so gay all the time, nothing would be able to bring me
down. Except maybe SARS."

What's wrong with being known as a progressive, peace-loving (if slightly
dazed) nation that trusts its citizens' judgment enough to let them make
their own decisions about what they will or will not put into their bodies?

And while we're thinking progressively, why not put the 30,000 high-grade
hydrophonic plants seized during last week's Barrie raids to good use?
Rather than burying them or incinerating them, why not supply the thousands
of Canadians who would benefit from medicinal marijuana, yet who have
consistently been failed by the Liberals' own dodgy Manitoba growing
operations and legal muddling of the matter.

That is, if dumping the pile in Nathan Phillips Square and looking the
other way for half an hour isn't an option.

It's not an option, is it?