PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND PASS IT AROUND

Legalize Pot Already And Stop The Tedious, Tiresome Debate

For the better part of a century, the great marijuana debate has been a
source of puzzled bemusement for many and a trigger for complete,
blithering outrage amongst others who fail to see why any debate should
exist at all in the first place.

The argument remains, and always will remain, an irresolvable one.

Such is the nature of the entire drug question.

For every rational, reasoned point one can raise in favour of a permissive
attitude towards the use or sale of mood-altering substances, there'll
always be someone collapsed on the sidewalk outside a nightclub somewhere,
twitching and foaming at the mouth in the throes of an overdose, to present
an equally valid argument in opposition.

Talk of liberalizing the laws governing pot in Canada has flared up off and
on for about as long as the laws themselves have been in place. Our very
own Prime Minister recommended a change in legislation while serving as
Justice Minister under Trudeau. If, however, any progress has actually been
made against bureaucratic stall tactics - a lengthy, inefficient "official
commission" is the most common - it's usually been rendered meaningless
when a change of government swats the whole, tiresome process back to
square one again. Which is, of course, exactly what each nervous
administration to wade into the marijuana fracas was praying would happen
all along.

The players change, the arguments on both sides are updated to fit the
temper of the times, but some things have always held true. The most vocal
and passionate opponents of pot use have likely never smoked a joint in
their lives, and probably should. Meanwhile, those who've enthusiastically
adopted pot legalization as their cause celebre are all too often genial,
dreadlocked space cases in Rusted Root T-shirts who fit and define a rather
obvious but enduring marijuana-advocate stereotype that doesn't preach
terribly well to the unconverted. And, no matter how many "smoke-ins" are
held and legal hemp "test crops" are cultivated and cautiously pot-positive
government reports are tabled, at the end of the day nothing ever changes.

Since the mid-'90s, though, pro-cannabis forces have gained new legitimacy
thanks to the gradual institutional acceptance of marijuana's medicinal
qualities. Compassion for the sick, suffering and dying has softened the
hearts and made grudging supporters of traditionally conservative forces in
the public and in office. And, since the federal Liberals will apparently
be in power until the end of history, they've had no choice but to
acknowledge that a growing majority of the public really doesn't think weed
is necessarily an instrument of the Devil, a psychotic agent or the
"gateway" to heroin addiction.

The government has to do something soon, anyway, since it's sitting on an
enormous crop of medicinal marijuana grown deep in an abandoned mine in
Flin Flon, Man. - amidst, of course, the kind of impregnable security
typical of U.S. missile bases - that it can't legally distribute to those
who need it.

Let's get on with it, already. And, not to undermine medicinal marijuana's
worthy cause, let's also stop pretending that this is all about AIDS
patients, wondrous hemp products and a renewable fuel source.

Let us, once and for all, concede that the recreational smoking of pot is
no big deal, that some drugs are much less potentially harmful than others
and that it's ridiculous to legislate against a weed that can grow easily
in ditches.

I'm exceedingly fond of pot, myself, and I'd be hard-pressed to name more
than a couple of people I know who don't light up from time to time. My
mother, bless her, is about the only person I know personally who feels the
act is particularly unnatural or dangerous. To me, it's a means of chemical
relaxation preferable even to my beloved beer, a facilitator for abstract
creative thought, a way of getting into those Beachcombers reruns on APTN,
the reason I sometimes conduct heartfelt attempts to broker peace between
my roommate's cat and my neighbour's dog. That's not so bad.

I've known a couple of dedicated potheads, true, who became inert blobs of
goo permanently fastened to the couch and Incredible Hulk cartoons, but -
overlooking the side effects of smoking anything and the possible hazards
of driving while under the influence - that's about as nefarious as
marijuana gets. Career potheads are a far less objectionable lot than, for
instance, career crackheads. Heavy pot smokers tend to be a Happy
Gilmore-loving, stop-and-smell-the-roses breed, as opposed to
fire-the-stolen-automatic-wildly-into-the-rose-bushes-'cause-"they've-been-followin'-me-all-week-tryin'-to-steal-my-sh--"
variety of drug user.

The federal government - fearing, no doubt, a Panama-esque invasion from
U.S. troops fighting the War on Drugs (remember that one?) - will never
stampede straight towards legalizing pot outright, as suggested in the
recent, contentious Senate-committee report responsible for kicking the
marijuana debate into high gear earlier this month.

The fact that the feds let that enormous trial balloon float up with
remarkably little fuss suggests, however, that they're close to opting for
the more conservative tactic of official decriminalization. Whatever
happens, of course, it'll make very little difference to the hundreds of
thousands of Canadian pot smokers who've never paid any attention to the
law as it stands, anyway.

It would be a refreshing change, though, if a government actually allowed
its citizens something that made them feel good for a change, besides the
booze and tobacco it tacitly endorses through the collection of
ever-increasing tax revenues.

Not all of us are content to escape the penury of daily existence simply
through vigorous exercise, the accumulation of wealth and goods and Prozac
prescriptions, after all, and an artificial high is very often preferable
to a natural low.

Plus, cable TV, Creamsicles and Method Man and Redman make a helluva lot
more sense when you're baked. That counts for something. I think.

How'd you get in here, anyway?