Pubdate: Fri, 18 Jul 2014
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Page: B6

TOBACCO, BOOZE, COFFEE AND MARIJUANA - OH MY!

Society Has Learned to Tolerate Things It Once Condemned

British Columbia's social conservatives shouldn't light their hair on 
fire because of the experiment with retail sales for recreational 
marijuana now taking place among our neighbours in Washington state. 
Likewise, libertarian pot enthusiasts would be wise to delay any 
joyous dancing in the streets, for there is still there, here is 
still here and today is not yet tomorrow.

Times change and notions of morality evolve, but here in Canada we're 
still trying to figure out how to effectively manage medicinal 
marijuana, let alone deal with smoking pot for fun - not that there 
aren't a lot of fun seekers. Sales statistics suggest that medicinal 
marijuana may have much in common with its bootleg era predecessor, 
medicinal brandy.

If things on the pot front seem to be developing too fast for some 
and too slow for others, it was ever thus. It's worth remembering 
that not so long ago the sale of alcohol for recreational purposes 
was reviled and the mantra of the day was "Lips that touch liquor 
shall never touch mine." Now it is babies in the beer parlour and 
cocktails are cool, especially during price knockdowns for happy hour.

Smoking was once de rigueur if you wished to be considered suave - 
unless you were female, in which case puffing on a cigarette in 
public was considered evidence of loose morals, even, horrors, a 
streak of wildness like daring to wear trousers. Yet if smoking 
tobacco was manly for men, it soon became sophisticated for women. 
Now smokers of both sex are forced into ghettos of public 
disapprobation - one regional district is considering banning smoking 
even in remote wilderness parks. Ironically, approbation for smoking 
marijuana seems to rise in inverse proportion to tobacco's fall from 
social grace.

Oh, and before all this, coffee, too, was once on the banned 
substances list. King Charles II even issued a royal proclamation 
suppressing coffee houses - all the new rage in the 1600s - because 
they were proving an irresistible attraction to the idle and disaffected.

Prohibitions generally fail in the long run. It seems the dissolute 
layabouts of the Enlightenment would gather to stimulate themselves 
with caffeine and then furiously discuss the ideas that eventually 
led to a constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy and the 
American Revolution, in which a continental society founded by 
Puritans came to embrace coffee, the bitter invention of Satan, while 
tossing British tea into Boston harbour.

As for alcohol, its ban proved a dismal failure in the long run, too. 
In fact, there are curious historical similarities to today's 
situation in which Washington state has more liberal pot laws while 
Canada continues to follow a more cautious and conservative path.

A century ago with alcohol it was the opposite. In Canada, 
prohibition was haphazard and hobbled by provincial governments which 
declined to have their rights and authority undermined. In the U. S., 
the ban was more draconian, enforced more ferociously and eventually 
required a constitutional amendment before it could be repealed. In 
Canada, Quebec repealed prohibition unilaterally in 1919 and 
instantly earned a reputation as a pit of depravity while 
simultaneously reaping vast wealth from taxing the legal sale of 
liquor to American tourists who flocked across the border. B. C. went 
wet in 1920. In the U. S., however, prohibition and its violent war 
on illegal booze remained in place until 1933.

To be sure, there are still some religious injunctions against 
consumption of alcohol or coffee, but generally our secular society 
continues to evolve toward greater tolerance of behaviours once 
condemned as vices which threatened to undermine the pillars of civilization.

Despite the perils of coffee, tobacco, booze and pot - and the cross- 
border temptations that accompanied them - we're all still here, 
things aren't so bad and norms continue to evolve. We're not likely 
to see the legalization of marijuana in Canada any time soon without 
a change of government - perhaps not quickly even then - but it does 
seem inevitable that legalization, regulation and taxation will 
displace prohibitions that seek to thwart public will.

Is this so bad? We live in a democracy and the public's will is 
intended to prevail. In the meantime, we should observe our 
neighbours' social experiment with great interest, avoid rushing to 
judgment one way or the other and seek to learn from Washington's 
successes and mistakes.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom