HE STILL TOKES A GOOD FIGHT

Rosie Defiant But No 'Marijuana Warrior'

Smoke curls around Rosie Rowbotham's apartment. It drifts past the camel
blankets, the signed photo of Neil Young, souvenirs of a dope dealing past.
It stings your eyes.

No, not that kind of smoke. Robert "Rosie" Rowbotham is on his third
Player's plain.

He has a rather satisfied look.

This spring, the feds debut their lighter dope laws.

A Senate committee wants marijuana possession made legal, period. A Commons
counterpart says under 30 grams ought to be subject to a ticket, with no
criminal record.

One way or t'other, the lid on pot will be lifted. And Rosie Rowbotham will
celebrate.

"I'd love to roll a 30-gram joint," he says, licking his lips.

Now a 30-gram reefer would rattle your teeth. That's the size of three
Cuban cigars.

Helluva way to say, "I told you so."

"They laughed at me, they called me a fool," says Rosie. "But here we are,
almost 30 years later." He grins.

"I guess I wasn't much of a deterrent."

They called Rosie a fool, all right. And they locked him up for 20 years
for importing marijuana. Easily the harshest soft drugs jail time in
Canadian history.

Norman Mailer and Neil Young spoke for him. But he was in the clink 'til
1997. His parole ended eight months ago.

He shares a modest walkup in a fourplex near Bathurst and Wilson with new
wife Valerie, 41.

In frames all around are mementos of marijuana shopping trips. Hopi art
from New Mexico. Weaving from Guatemala. Gold-edged cloth from India. An
Afghani camel blanket, given to him by a guy named Buddha Bob.

Maybe you remember photos of Rosie from the '60s and '70s. The hairy, fiery
dope king of that hippie castle, Rochdale College. The screw-you glare. The
defiant finger.

Now, he is 52, with 224 pounds hanging on a 5-foot-10 frame. His hair is
grey tufts.

He is a respected producer for CBC's national radio news and makes TV
documentaries.

The defiance flickers still, though it is old-man defiance.

"I still have the same belief system from the Rochdale hippie days," he
says. "But my actions are not those of a young man, of a marijuana warrior."

One May morning in 1977, Rosie Rowbotham ate a hunk of jailhouse hashish,
then went before Judge Stephen Borins.

Rosie's ad-lib speech is large in legend, especially in places where pipes
are passed around.

"Stop burning witches," he said and rambled about the freak culture,
hippies, yippies, John Lennon, Marx, Jesus Christ, Buddha. "Marijuana
enlightens the mind" and 30 years from now, he told court, it would be
known to be harmless.

Then he said, "I can't be rehabilitated."

Okay, said the judge, and gave him 14 years.

In 1985, he faced another judge, for importing dope from Lebanon. He played
it smarter, sounded contrite. They called him a "social bloodsucker" and
threw the book at him.

"I wonder what they'd say now," he says, toking on another Player's.

But "they don't owe me an apology and I don't owe them one. Karmically,
we'll both be judged. I look in the mirror and I feel pretty good."

What if they said, Rosie, you make the law?

"Well, I work in news, so I can't be a marijuana advocate."

But in Rosie's Canada, there'd be no limit on soft drugs, except on driving
under the influence of them.

He says he hates hard drugs -- heroin, cocaine and the like. But he'd make
them legal, take the business away from criminals and deal with the health
side, addiction.

As for the soft stuff, he says, millions of Canadian smoke it. "People with
the Order of Canada. Cops, lawyers.

"The war on drugs is over. Drugs won."

Rosie still owes $200 on his couch. Drives a 1990 van.

The stereo, he inherited from his older brother, murdered in 1994. His
body, his killers, have never been found.

The brother was called Big Rosie, growing up in Belleville, because of his
red hair. Young Robert, always tagging along, became Little Rosie. Then
just Rosie. Not, as all the press clips say, because of his sunny disposition.

I ask the obvious: Still tokin', Rosie?

"Oh, Jesus, that's a good question." He looks at the door, as if expecting
it to burst open. "I don't know. Can't remember. Hey, I spent 20 years in
jail for that. What a crazy question."

What's the answer?

"Okay, if there's a joint around, I'll indulge."

I stop myself from asking if he inhales.