Pubdate: Thu, 28 Apr 2016
Source: Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.langleyadvance.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1248
Author: Bob Groeneveld

PUFF THE MAGIC LAW CHANGES

Last week started in July.

By Friday it had settled into June. And through the weekend, all the
plants in my garden kept insisting that it's May. The world is upside
down. Or at the very least, it's tilted at a pretty weird angle.

If you have occasion to partake of the devil's weed for anything but
the direst medical circumstances, the tilt got a lot weirder in that
April week which took us through the looking glass into the heart of
summer.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a change in the political
climate that will affect pot growers even more dramatically than the
Global Warming that has been throwing a curve at more conventional
gardeners like myself.

Trudeau Jr. has decreed that in a year's time, the Evil Weed will no
longer be evil within the precincts of Canada.

As welcome as the Liberal government's intent to legalize recreational
use of pot may be, there's a quirk in the PM's announcement that could
send another year's worth of Canadians on a bad trip into an ironic
Wonderland, one that is already not-quite-so-ironically inhabited by
thousands who had the misfortune of breaking a silly law before the
politicians decided to catch up to the rest of the country.

The current crop of pot smokers is being asked to hold their breath
until then... or perhaps I should rephrase that.

While the lawmakers dilly-dally over the stated intent to legalize,
police will continue to kick down doors and root out all the nasty
little rotters who criminally smoke a dried weed.

The justice system will continue to grind away at the souls of those
whose greatest crime has been the pollution of their own lungs and
perhaps the diminishment of their own mental capacity. (Although, that
latter point is not even scientifically certain, mostly because
anti-pot paranoia stifled serious research, for fear that it might be
discovered that all of the paranoia has been unfounded. That said, I
should add that there are indications that pot does have a significant
deleterious effect on developing brains, particularly in the teen years.)

Until next year, our jails will continue to provide housing for newly
minted criminals who will have to network with established prisoners
to rebuild their pot connections - or settle for harder drugs if the
grass dries up=C2=85 so to speak.

And what happens to all those criminals, the new and the old, when
their crime evolves into an ordinary recreational experience?
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MAP posted-by: Matt