TOBACCO IS LEGAL AND POT DEMONIZED: GO FIGURE

Our mayor, our premier, the
opposition, restaurant and casino owners, the non-smokers and the
smokers-rights types, they're all locked in a battle to the death over
who gets to smoke -- cigarettes that is -- and who doesn't.

Glen Murray to date won't let himself be pinned down on a citywide
ban, ditto Doer on a provincewide ban.

Restaurants that have bars attached continue to allow smoking while
bar owners have nightmares at the thought that someday soon their
establishments might have to go cold turkey.

Meanwhile, booze is legal, cigarette smoking is legal and marijuana is
not. There's something wrong with this picture.

I've smoked cigarettes, toked and I've drunk. A lot.

In fact, for a few years I smoked enough weed to keep several pushers
in business. Thankfully, I got the stuff from friends and didn't have
to pay street price.

And for more years than I like to admit, I drank tsunamis of
booze.

I quit both. Weed because I had a couple of uncomfortable trips that I
didn't enjoy. And it was simply time to quit.

Booze because it was controlling me instead of the other way around.
It was long past the time I should have quit.

Of the two, booze was far more damaging. No, I did not wake up in any
gutters, lose any jobs, get into any fights or wreck any hotel rooms.
What I did do was lose a part of myself in the bottle.

And then there's cigarettes. I quit them, too. Quitting smoking dope
was nothing; quitting drinking did require some effort, but quitting
cigarettes was torture.

Yet, we legally sell booze of all kinds and cigarettes of all kinds
but when it comes to marijuana, we get all weird.

Evidently, there's something morally wrong with lighting up a doobie
as opposed to lighting up a cigarette or downing a beer.

Rot.

There's nothing morally wrong with any of them. What's wrong with
booze is that, taken to excess, it imperils our relationships, our
self-esteem, our employment and, eventually, our very souls. We become
slaves to it. It takes over our lives -- and, often, our livers. And
there comes a time when we do wake up in a gutter somewhere.

Used properly, booze is healthy. A glass or two of wine is good for
the heart; a beer on a hot day is a wonderful thing and getting drunk
occasionally can be a lot of fun. It is continual excess that is
damaging. And for some of us, one beer or one glass of wine leads to
that very excess.

There's nothing morally wrong with smoking cigarettes, either. Smoking
is not a sin. Trouble is that tobacco is addictive -- in a much more
demanding way than booze. It is an addiction that reaches out and
grabs its victims by the throat -- and the lungs -- leaving them
gasping for respite. And it gives none. Few are the smokers who can
have a couple of cigarettes a day. Most people are up to at least a
pack a day in no time at all. When I quit I was doing three packs a
day. What's the difference between that and doing a little coke --
metaphorically speaking?

And there's nothing wrong with smoking dope. You will not experience a
bolt of lightning from heaven if you indulge in the weed. Smoking dope
does not lead to hard drugs anymore than drinking milk leads to
whiskey. It does lead to giggling and perhaps a weight gain as a
result of serious munchies. Yes, it may lead to memory loss; so does
booze. It may lead to a momentary inability to make much sense. And
just how much sense does the average person make after 11 beers?

On the other hand, with marijuana, if you smoke up, you will usually
do so in the company of other like-minded people none of whom will
make much sense and all of whom will be laughing about it.

Is marijuana dangerous? Yes, if used to excess. So are chocolate
bars.

But marijuana is certainly not more dangerous than either booze or
cigarettes. Indeed, the latter causes so many health problems that
there is a dreadful irony in the fact tobacco is legal and marijuana
is not.

The irony runs even more rampant when we consider that booze is legal
and marijuana is not.

Do I have a solution? Sorry. Not in my job description. All I can tell
you is that irony is obviously addictive and that quitting smoking is
the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.