Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2008
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Peter Webster
Note: Peter W. Webster is member of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame and 
the Canadian Skiing Hall of Fame.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?420 (Cannabis - Popular)

PUBLIC POT FESTIVAL A SAD DISPLAY

Vancouver's "420 festival" on Sunday in front of the Vancouver Art 
Gallery was a sad display of open community contempt for our criminal 
laws in Canada. It was an equally sad commentary on the extent to 
which an unhealthy drug culture has developed in Vancouver almost as 
a matter of course, with our public leadership failing to challenge it.

As I walked along Georgia Street, I observed hundreds of young 
people, many of them in their early teens, blatantly flounting the 
law and disrespecting their own bodily and mental health by inhaling 
the toxic smoke of dried cannabis buds in full public view.

It was startling that only a few hours before almost 60,000 people 
gathered on the same street for the annual Sun Run, a public display 
of our community's supposed collective commitment to physical health 
and well-being.

Do most people fail to see the contradiction between condoning the 
use of mind-altering intoxicants while at the same time turning out 
en mass to demonstrate our commitment to healthy bodies through 
physical fitness?

How can we have civic bylaws being enforced to prevent smoking of 
tobacco cigarettes in and around all public buildings, yet our police 
stand by and watch teenagers light up huge joints as they lounge on 
the steps of the art gallery, less than a metre away from the 
building's fresh air intake?

Mind-altering substances do little to sustain a person in their 
pursuit of a full and meaningful life, just as sedentary physical 
habits do little to sustain a long and happy life.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom