LONG ARM OF - BLACK- GETS 'EM

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. 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
cutbacks, no police were actually on duty, but an officer could be
summoned from a nearby jurisdiction 'in an extreme emergency'.

I slammed down the phone, said some bad words, then put on my police hat and
loaded my police dog into my car. 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. The
crest on the front of my new cap read Ontario Provincial Police: South
Porcupine.

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.

Well, I did - 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. 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.

Arthur Black lives a law-abiding life on Saltspring Island, B.C.