GOING TO POT

Did I ever tell you about the time I impersonated a cop? Relax,
sergeant - it was several years ago, in another provincial
jurisdiction. I lived in the sticks at the time, the hour hand had
long passed midnight and some Party-Hearties in a house down the road
were making noise. Way too much noise.

I took it for an hour and a half and then I called the cops. A bored
dispatcher informed me that, as it was the weekend and due to
budgetary cutbacks, no police were actually on duty, but an officer
could be summoned from a nearby jurisdiction 'in an extreme emergency'.

I was younger then, with a shorter fuse and not nearly the level of
urbanity and tolerance for which I am so justly renowned today.
Accordingly, I slammed down the phone, said some bad words, then put
on my police hat and loaded my police dog into my car. Together we
drove down the road and fetched up in the driveway of the
aforementioned party house.

A word about my police hat. And my police dog: The hat was a nylon
mesh cap I picked up after a charity soft ball game between a rural
police detachment and the radio station I worked for. (Over a
post-game beer, the cop who played shortstop informed me that he
coveted my CBC ball cap. We swapped.) The crest on the front of my new
cap read ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE, SOUTH PORCUPINE. Not exactly a
slogan calculated to strike fear in the heart of malfeasants, but a
collector's item nonetheless.

My 'police' dog Rufus was, in truth, a mangy border
collie/indeterminate mix, but I hoped that in the dark and from a
distance he might pass for an Alsatian on duty. I hammered on the
front door, which was ajar, walked in, and in my best Lorne Greene
voice of doom, boomed "WE'VE HAD SEVERAL COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE NOISE
YOU PEOPLE ARE MAKING. IF YOU CAN'T TONE IT DOWN, I'M GONNA HAVE TO
LAY CHARGES." What I did was totally illegal, not to mention
surpassingly stupid, but it worked like a charm.

Know why? Because it was a pot party, not a booze party. The place
reeked of grass, and as I delivered my speech people all over the room
were surreptitiously divesting themselves of baggies, stubbing out
roaches and desperately trying not to exhale in my face.

What's more, they were all stoned. Instead of seeing me as the
ridiculous impostor I clearly was, they figured the dope they were
smoking was unusually excellent.

Know what would have happened to me if that had been a booze party
instead of a pot party? There's a good chance I'd have been stomped
into a carpet stain. And I'm not exaggerating. That very thing
happened to a lawyer in Squamish, B.C. two summers ago. He went to a
booze party at a neighbour's house to ask them to pipe down. Two of
the knuckle-dragging juiceheads in attendance kicked him to death on
the spot. All of which is a long-winded way of getting to my point,
which is: why the hypocrisy about marijuana?

The federal New Democrats are doing backflips to distance themselves
from their leader Jack Layton's rather brave endorsement of the
substance. Politicos of other stripes are puffing themselves up to
solemnly intone how they've never touched the stuff - and who can
forget Bill Clinton's pathetic cavil "I smoked, but I didn't inhale."

Well, I did, Bill - and what's more I don't personally know a single
adult - not one - who hasn't tried pot at least once. It's no big
deal, folks. Let's finally admit it. Am I advocating that everybody
smoke pot? No. I don't smoke it any more because it's too expensive,
not worth the hassle and it makes me stupid. When I'm on grass, I have
all the verve and panache of a rutabaga. It also makes me hungry and
lazy - two conditions I have enough trouble grappling with when I'm
clear-headed. All I'm saying is: let's stop being two-faced about it.
Booze causes a hundred times the grief, bloodshed and property damage
that pot does, but we turn a blind eye because through a fluke of
justice and thanks to the twisted interpretations of seedy old
perverts like J. Edgar Hoover and Alberta's own Emily Murphy, alcohol
is legal and marijuana isn't.

The Canadian legal system is woozily staggering towards righting this
absurdity, but it's not there yet, so think twice or even three times
before you flout the law, even if the law is, to paraphrase Dickens, a
demonstrable ass when it comes to weed.

And if you must smoke, keep it down. Because I don't want to have to
put on my police hat and come over and bust you.