TAKE HEED: YOU MAY TOKE, BUT DON'T DARE SMOKE

Not that I make a habit of offering free advice, but if governments in
Canada had any foresight, our politicians and bureaucrats might have
saved taxpayers a huge mountain of money through a few of the simplest
administrative steps imaginable:

First stack the tobacco laws and regulations on one side of legal-size
table, and the marijuana statutes and restrictions on the other side
- - federal, provincial, municipal, all of them.

Got it? Good.

Next, with a medium-nib ball-point pen - black or blue ink only -
scratch out every reference to "marijuana" in the dope laws and above
it write "tobacco." Similarly, in the existing smoking laws, change
every "tobacco"to a "marijuana." Then have the Solicitor General
initial each correction to make the amendments all nice and legal-like.

Ta-da! Recreational drug use in Canada would be exactly where
government seems intent upon taking it: tobacco would be really,
totally illegal - seriously, dude - and marijuana, in turn, would
be just kind of, like, sort of, you know (nudge, wink) . . . illegal?

Surely the day is inevitable regardless, the future when smoking a
cigarette, even in one's private residence, is a criminal offense,
punishable with prison time, whereas sparking up a joint at work is
merely subject to occupational health-and-safety committee approval,
and typically restricted to 15-minute breaks at exits toward the rear
of the building.

Sure. By then municipalities will require every restaurant to maintain
separate "non-toking" tables for those customers who do not wish to
sit in the smoke-filled "toking" section, which, if the management has
any entrepreneurial savvy, features nightly super-sized menu specials.

Conversely, the punk who lights an after-dinner cigar at any table in
the restaurant, toking or non-toking, is reported to the RCMP by the
hostess for immediate arrest and incarceration to await preliminary
hearing. Stupid people sue pot dealers for compensation, claiming
their inability to think clearly or to remember events a half-hour
later was caused by exposure to second-hand dope. Forced by government
legislation to switch from one bad weed to another, the committed
smoking public obliges. A single bingo game lasts, like, forever.
Pictures of brain cell damage, of bean-bag furniture and of Tommy
Chong are required as federal health advisories on all bags of pot for
individual retail sale. Huffers of the hemp in Saskatchewan, however,
are protected from the graphic illustrations of marijuana's worst
horrors by a unique provincial law that requires the dealer keep his
naughty inventory and his ugly federal warnings hidden behind a
curtain. Only when a customer specifically requests pot is the
cannibis vendor allowed to pull back the drape of his sidewalk
push-cart in front of the high school.

And on and on.

Government launches expensive campaigns to help Canadians stop smoking
dope, complete with TV commercials of an intellectual tone similar to
the recommended level for teaching shapes to three-year-olds: "This is
Bob. He is trying to stop smoking pot cold turkey, but not without a
plan. Every time the urge hits Bob to get wrecked, totally messed up,
he takes a drink of water. Those cravings don't last long." Like the
cigarette smoker who was doing OK, five hours without a puff, until
the dang federal TV ad had to go mention tobacco cravings, the doper
decides that if reality is truly as stupid as illustrated by
government commercials, clean and sober maybe isn't worth it.

Which is good, because by now the government needs pot smokers. Since
tobacco was banned outright, black-market cigarettes have become as
cheap and as tax-free and as readily available to kids and adults
alike as dope was before the government stepped in to decriminalize
and regulate pot consumption. All that money now collected in
marijuana duties and excise taxes will pay for next big flip-flop, the
decriminalization of cigarettes and the prohibition on grass.

Maybe use pencil, not ink, on those laws.