Pubdate: Fri, 13 Nov 2015
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network
Contact:  http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Author: Chris Nelson
Page: A22

IT'S TIME FOR A NEW ATTACK IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

Legalizing pot is the first step toward eliminating ' cool factor'

Finally, after the heated rhetoric, the lost lives and the billions of
dollars spent, we have an opportunity to wage a war on drugs in Canada
that can actually be won.

To do so, the Liberals may as well push through their plan to legalize
marijuana as soon as possible. Only then can the real fight begin.

For decades, governments, police forces and anxious parents have tried
valiantly, but vainly, to accomplish the impossible by stemming the
relentless tide of pot smoking across society.

It was impossible because smoking weed, ganja, dope, 420, skunk, Mary
Jane - call it what you will - always had an ace trumping any
strategy, threat or appeal. Simply put, it was cool.

How cool? Well, according to a recent poll by Forum Research, there
are as many as seven million potential customers for legal marijuana
in Canada. That's almost a third of this country's adults.

How was law enforcement or the justice system ever going to fight such
acceptance?

Just as Prohibition left the field clear for gangsters trading in
booze to make an absolute killing in every sense of that word,
millions of customers looking for an illegal product in today's world
equates with similar lawlessness in drug dealing.

When learning of another shooting on a Calgary street, we immediately
assume drugs are involved. Most times, we're right, and while there
are much harsher stimulants than dope being peddled, to dealers, it's
like coffee at Tim Hortons - a core business staple with good margins
for the bottom line.

Regardless, that battle's lost. We're about to enter a new arena and
this is one where the cool factor might wilt in the face of some real
applied heat.

Once marijuana is out of the closet, so to speak, then the illicit
thrill is gone. It can then be treated like any other product many
people pay for and consume in quantity.

The relative paucity of in-depth medical studies on the health
affects will be reversed. Here's a whole new forum for research on a
product that millions of Canadians will be legally using. There are
scientific reputations to be made, awards to be won. As to those
results? Well, science was never my subject, but I'd hazard a guess
pulling smoke, of whatever kind, deep down into one's lungs is not a
good idea. Lung, throat and esophageal cancer will take the sheen off
the cool factor, pronto.

Of course, there are other ways to get high. Baking pot cookies, for
example. But then, there are the psychological effects - the tendency
of people who have schizophrenic tendencies to find those symptoms
exacerbated by weed.

Again, scientists will flock to such a fertile ground of research,
given the popularity of the product. We will get answers.

Then there's taxation. Oh goody.

As I've no intention of bothering with marijuana - the few times I
tried it decades ago, I ended up giggling like some 12- year-old at
her first Justin Bieber concert - then old fogeys like me are in the
black. Tax the heck out of it and pay for my pension.

And taxes certainly aren't cool, either.

Then there's law enforcement. If you get stopped driving by the cops
and they find some weed in your back pocket, then that's what they
focus on.

But when that, of itself, isn't an issue, the fact you're operating a
deadly machine while stoned comes into view. Better breathalyzers will
arrive that capture such data.

Being discovered driving stoned will be the horror ordeal that being
charged with drunk driving has become.

This isn't new, of course. Once the Marlboro man sat high on his horse
in every sense as half the population smoked cigarettes. They were
cool.

Not any more. They are rightly looked upon as deadly, expensive and
smelly. See a 40- year-old smoking a cigarette in his car and what
comes to mind? Cool? I think not. Let the war begin. This time, we
might win.
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MAP posted-by: Matt