WHAT ARE THESE POT SHOTS REALLY ABOUT?

Last week decriminalization advocates and drug hawks alike cringed at the
first whiff of Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's dog's breakfast of a
rewrite of the pot laws.

It is feared that the proposed $100 ticket for possession of 15 grams or
less will make it far easier for police to crack down on hapless
pot-smokers caught toking up in the alley beside the club. (The hassle of
pressing real charges through an overburdened court system currently
results in little but your pot disappearing into the the pocket of the
constable.)

To please our American masters this deceptive crumb of conciliation is
accompanied by stricter penalties for cultivation and trafficking. The
Justice Minister even hustled down to Washington to give psychopath John
Ashcroft a sneak preview before parliament had even seen the bill. So
popular was Cauchon's first draft with all the stakeholders that the
legislation was hastily dragged back into the blacksmiths for another round
of hammer-and-tongs.

And so we wait.

This is perhaps the one time I wish Jean Chretien would show some of that
old-school arrogance and draft a real "fuck you" legalization bill that
mirrors the findings of all those costly Senate committees and special
commissions that reveal that pot-smoking is relatively harmless compared to
the so-called legal drugs our society condones that kill thousands of
Canadians a year.

Alas, we have an extraordinary ability to create bad legislation when we're
trying to please our terror-addled American brothers. The last time the
Feds set about reforming pot-policy under Mulroney, they made the penalties
more strict across the board, all the while insisting they had no actual
intention of enforcing the law. Is that rational?

Speaking of irrational, John Ashcroft says that our B.C. bud is the "crack"
of marijuana. It sure rocks my boat all right, but is that an apt
comparison? Very rarely do I find myself tweaking down the pavement,
digging holes in my arms after a toke of the stuff. Usually I just plot the
demise of some convenience foods or sit contentedly in the garden watching
the flowers open.

One would think Mr. Ashcroft would want citizens in a peaceful and pliable
condition contentedly wolfing their chips 'n' dips. Instead he insults our
proud cultivators and our collective intelligence.

Honestly, what happened to politeness? Do we criticize the Americans for
their Marlboros and Camel cigarettes, commonly known as the "crack" of
tobacco products? Do we cite the dozen U.S. states that have cut penalties
for marijuana possession in recent years? Do we belabour the point that
continued prohibition raises prices and makes smuggling appealing to
criminal organizations? Do we tell the Americans to get a handle on their
own collossal demand for drugs before they criticize everyone else?

The whole situation is so absurd you'd almost think these laws were a way
of intimidating otherwise law-abiding activists and protecting the
inefficient and polluting oil, fibre and pharmaceutical industries that
replaced the hemp economy after criminalization.