Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jun 2016
Source: Toronto 24hours (CN ON)
Page: 7
Column: Debate This
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Inc.
Contact:  http://24hrs.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4068
Author: Mike Strobel

DOES THE SMELL OF FREEDOM STINK?

Stroll Dundas Square near my place night or day and you'll confront 
the hidden horror of legalized pot. Phheww. Not for nothing do they 
call it "skunk." As our medieval marijuana laws lift, libertarians 
like me rejoice. Common sense finally wins out. A victimless "crime" 
is off the books. No harm, no foul. No foul? Take a whiff. My pal Al, 
passing Roy Thomson Hall en route from a Jays game, wrinkled his nose 
and remarked: "It's everywhere. My son really hates that smell. 
What's he going to do when it's legal?"

Good question. Unless you have terminal nasal drip, you know the 
scent. If symphony goers are toking up in public, everyone is.

In my business you smell many things, including fear and jealousy. 
But few are so pungent as pot. It has an oily, sickly sweet 
fragrance, not unlike your armpit. Intensity and bouquet vary by 
strain of cannabis, with the worst being the potent "skunk" varieties.

I quit toking 30 years ago because my weed smelled like oregano, 
which, come to think of it, it probably mostly was.

Marijuana's odour is already an issue in places like Washington and 
Oregon, which lifted Pothibition in 2014.

A woman whose backyard disappeared in clouds of smoke from next door 
griped to Portland station KATU: "People's rights are being violated 
by the people who have been given the right to smoke pot." But an 
Oregon court ruled, in another neighbour-from-hell case, that 
marijuana smoke is not inherently "physically offensive" - at least 
not as bad as rotting trash.

"We are not prepared to declare ... that the odour of marijuana smoke 
is equivalent to the odour of garbage," the panel of judges decided. 
"Nor can we say, however, that the odour is inoffensive as a matter of law.

"Some people undoubtedly find the scent pleasing." By "some people," 
I assume the judges meant giggly, peckish ones.

"Who determines whether a particular odour is offensive?" the ruling 
added. "Although some odours are objectively unpleasant - rotten eggs 
or raw sewage come to mind - others are more subjective in nature." 
Poppycock. Weed stinks.

Stick your head out your window and smell for yourself. As 
legalization looms, you will encounter it more and more.

Down here in the laughably named Garden District, where most of the 
gardens are, ahem, herbal, my neighbours face many olfactory assaults.

When it's hot, like this week, Dundas St. E. is a heady brew of 
shawarma, butter chicken, tacos, burritos, cyclists, panhandlers and liberals.

Close your eyes on some days, and you think you're in Cleveland in 
the 1960s, when the river caught fire.

Weed is not new, of course, but as the end of Pothibition draws near, 
potheads no longer care if they're caught.

That's fine, be free, puff away, but think of the rest of us. Do not 
abandon the tricks you employed to mask weed's smell back when it 
could land you in jail.

Carry your stash in Reefer Keepers or other zip-lock bags. Use a 
vaporizer pen. You can even MacGyver a filter out of paper towels and 
elastics. Don't ask me how I know this.

Obviously, don't light up in a crowd, though the same goes for 
tobacco and gastroenteritis. Use breath mints and hand sanitizer. 
Sorry to say, you stink, your hair stinks, your clothes stink, even 
when your joint is stone-cold.

Better yet, exercise your new freedom with edibles. Could be 
wonderful. Imagine the city bathed in the fragrance of fresh-baked brownies.

Just keep your damn crumbs off the sidewalk.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom