Pubdate: Sun, 29 Sep 2002
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.fyitoronto.com/torsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: David Ragault
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1775/a06.html
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor, headline by newshawk
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

SMOKE A JOINT AND CHILL

In response to Jonathan Usher's letter in the Sept. 15 Sunday Sun:

Mr. Usher tells us that pot is morally wrong because it encourages the 
users to escape the realities of the world, to escape from the benefits and 
responsibilities of being a Canadian.

Let me give him a little taste of what's going on every Friday and Saturday 
night at parties. Today, some people drink, some people smoke. By the end 
of the night, drunk people are the ones who are awash in happy dizziness, 
falling down, throwing up in the woods or fighting. Stoned people are 
sitting around the fire discussing politics, music, economics, religions, 
social and personal problems, spirituality, the meaning of life, world 
problems, and they have been for all night.

We talk about the attitudes of people who think they've got business 
telling other people what substances they may put in their bodies, which we 
think is wrong. We talk about how the "drug war" has artificially inflated 
the value of the drugs and left the trade in the hands of bikers, the 
Colombian cartels, al-Qaida, etc., which we also think is wrong. We talk 
about how better off we'd all be if everyone would just smoke a joint and 
chill instead of drinking themselves fat and stupid.

David Ragault, Montreal

(Just like conversation at one of those parties, this argument seems to be 
dragging on forever)
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager