Pubdate: Tue, 18 Apr 2017 Source: Record, The (CN QU) Copyright: 2017 The Sherbrooke Record Contact: http://www.sherbrookerecord.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3194 Author: Peter Black Page: A6 LEGAL POT? ARE WE TRIPPING, OR WHAT? "Far out, man!" That's likely what teenaged me would have said if a visitor from the future had said Prime Minister Trudeau had legalized marijuana in 2018. Then I might have said "What? Trudeau is still prime minister?" Then, "Wow, this is some boss weed if I'm talking to some dude from the future." I might have added "Hey, visitor, when did the Leafs win their next Cup?" Truth be told, your scribe was not much of stoner in his youth, though he effected some of the look and lifestyle. Long hair. Check. Tie-dyed shirts. Check. Bare-foot summers. Check. But a regular consumer of marijuana products? Pas a mon gout. Didn't really have the mental constitution for it. In fact, it's always been a mystery, and the subject of mountains of research, how people react differently when tetrahydrocannabinol hits their bloodstream. Some folks become drooling zombies, some become high-functioning superbeings with insight into the universe, some are gripped by paranoid delusions of imminent death, others just giggle a lot and eat fistfuls of Doritos. Reaction to pot is not unlike how there are fun and entertaining drinkers, or mean and violent ones, or the former morphing into the latter. Canadian society, it will be noted, has managed the sale and consumption of alcohol for a century without disastrous results. Booze still does far too much damage to human lives in homes and on the highways, but its ill effects are an ongoing social challenge that people and governments must face through effective laws and more responsible behaviour. Trudeau the Elder had the opportunity 45 years ago to make the move his son is now making. His government, concerned about the soaring use of drugs by young people and the consequent criminal impact, set up the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-medical Use of Drugs, otherwise known as the Ledain Commission. Its report in 1972 recommended decriminalizing the recreational use of marijuana, but the political mood was not right, and the momentum fizzled. Back then, smoking pot was an integral part of the protest culture of the Sixties, along with other such substances as LSD, magic mushrooms or the like. "Turn on, tune in, drop out," was psychedelic psychologist Timothy Leary's mantra, followed in various degrees by millions of young people around the world. As laughably idealistic and naive those times seem in retrospect, some positive social change came about as a result, mostly in the struggle for racial and gender equality. The anti-war thing didn't seem to stick, though, with the end of the draft in the U.S. sucking the steam out of it, and the military-industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower rued making a smooth transition from Richard Nixon's Vietnam to Ronald Reagan's global anti-communist campaign, topped by the Star Wars space missiles plan. Pot has lost its counter-culture chic and its political potency. It's now just one more way of getting high in a world that seems to value escapism above all else. While it's true organized crime still makes millions off the pot trade, law enforcement officials report crooks have shifted to where the big money is, in cocaine, heroin and an ever-expanding pharmacy's worth of synthetic drugs. It's unlikely, given the sensitivity and explosiveness of the debate over the legalization of such a garden variety dope as marijuana, Canada is prepared to go the route of Portugal. Back in 2001, the country decriminalized all drugs, treating drug use as a public health not a criminal issue. An "arrest" leads to a stint with a health counsellor, not hard time in prison, or a criminal conviction. The impact has been dramatic, according to research. Drug use has decreased overall, there's less drug-related crime, fewer HIV infections and overdoses, and there's been a huge leap in people seeking treatment for addiction. Canada's doing it one drug at a time, one supposes. In the meantime, the aging hippies of this land prepare themselves for July next year when the establishment takes the forbidden fun out of getting high on pot. Bummer, man. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt