Pubdate: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 Source: Winnipeg Sun (CN MB) Copyright: 2003 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.fyiwinnipeg.com/winsun.shtml Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/503 Author: Lyn Cockburn 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. - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPFFlorida)