by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Almost all of my close friends are chronic on the chronic. True, they may find Royal Canadian Air Farce almost funny at times, are chained to their XBoxes, like bad dub music and will only leave the safe confines of their homes when they run out of Cheetos, but they are contributing members of society. I also know people that run grow-ops or are neighbourhood pot peddlers. None of the above people have ever dealt with organized crime, would hardly break into your car or house to subsidize their need for weed and are living proof that marijuana is not a gateway drug to harder things. Chances are, most of the people you know are potheads too.

On April 3, Stephen Harper held a meeting in Ottawa in front of the Canadian Professional Police Association and announced that the Conservative government would not be re-introducing the Liberal government’s marijuana decriminalization legislation. The Liberal’s initial idea behind the decriminalization is that if the amount seized was obviously for personal use you would be fined and a criminal record would not be drawn up, and hence our taxpayers’ money would not be soaked up by lengthy prosecution and incarceration. It has been all too obvious that Harper has proved his critics right and has been kowtowing to U.S. interests during his three months in office, and this, sadly, doesn’t prove the exception. While the Liberals said no to DEA agents setting up shop in Canada so the U.S. could help stifle the reported $10-billion cross-border pot trade, Harper gladly bends over to Bush on this one.

Harper has included his assault on the five-leafed menace as part of his clamping-down-on-crime program. There would seem to be little doubt that gun violence in Canada has grown in the past year, especially in Toronto and more recently in Montreal, and we need to do something before the proportions become epidemic. I am not going by statistics here—I just have to look at the newly-etched bullet holes in my local breakfast place on St-Laurent. Now here comes the tired argument, “Do you think the gunman that put holes in my breakfast place was drunk or stoned?”

That’s right, Poindexter, people who are stoned are incapable of violence. Have you ever tried getting into a fight while stoned? Fucking impossible. Now let’s look at the Liberals’ initial plan of handing out lenient charges to the dealer and even growers. Do you think even that could blot out the element of organized crime? Here’s my take: if pot were fully legal, there would be no pot crime because people who are in organized crime are, well, into crime. Have you ever seen a biker trying to sell you a pint of bathtub gin on the corner?

Thankfully, there are still resources that prove we are not just the U.S. to the North, as well as helping to save tax dollars better used to fight the real war on crime. Go to www.leap.cc or check www.norml.com to find your local chapter, and let’s get out of these dark ages.

SMOKE ’EM IF YOU GOT ’EM… jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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