Pubdate: Sat, 22 Apr 2017
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2017 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Gord Henderson
Page: A10

THERE'S NO ROOM FOR DOUBTERS ON POT BANDWAGON

Fifty years on, I still wince in recalling those two frightened high
school kids I saw hauled into an Oshawa courtroom and handed stiff
jail terms, two years less a day, for possessing minuscule amounts of
marijuana.

They weren't dealers. They were just teens dabbling in the latest
thing, but they had the misfortune of being the first "drug arrests"
in a tough, beer-swilling automotive city that was close to hysteria
over the arrival of dirty, long-haired hippies and their damn weed.

Those kids would be senior citizens now, but I still wonder what
became of them. Were their lives ruined by that jail time and the
criminal records that followed them everywhere? Or did they move on
and become brain surgeons and bank presidents?

I get the argument behind decriminalizing marijuana consumption.
Nobody should do jail time for simply consuming a product less
damaging, at least to the liver, than alcohol. If deterrence was the
intent of those harsh marijuana sentences, they utterly failed. By the
early 1970s, it was all but impossible to attend a social gathering
without being handed a joint and expected to partake, at least a
polite puff or two, or be labelled a pariah.

But the pendulum has swung. The anti-weed hysteria of the late '60s
has become raging 21st-century fury that anyone would dare voice
concerns about the fallout of Justinian Canada becoming only the
second nation to give marijuana its full blessing.

Mayor Drew Dilkens ran afoul of the pot crusaders and their missionary
zeal three weeks ago when he described, in this space, how a trip to
Denver, Colo., where marijuana was legalized four years ago, left him
worried about the possible impact on a border city like Windsor. On
the 16th Street pedestrian mall, he had encountered throngs of
aggressive "riff-raff and undesirables." Denver's mayor has gone even
further, decrying the area's "scourge of hoodlums."

Enraged readers dumped on Dilkens. They ripped him for being
out-of-touch with the times and failing to recognize a potential
tourism bonanza for our downtown.

They mocked him for being concerned for his safety in Denver and
wailed that he was trying to deny them their precious medicinal marijuana.

Never mind that Dilkens never mentioned medical marijuana and didn't
say whether he's for or against legalization.

Facts don't matter. All that matters is that he wasn't out front
leading the marijuana-welcoming parade, pompoms in hand, and that
merited condemnation.

The most interesting message Dilkens received after the column
appeared came from someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

"As a Colorado sheriff who's had to deal with the impacts of
commercialized marijuana, I will tell you that your concerns are
warranted," wrote Justin Smith, the outspoken sheriff of Larimer
County, population 334,000, an hour's drive north of Denver.

"Since we approved commercial marijuana production and sales, we've
been overrun by transients and transient-related crime. In the last
three years my jail population has soared by more than 25 per cent.
Six years ago, transients accounted for one-in-eight inmates in my
jail. Today, they account for one-in-three inmates and many have
multiple pending cases. Our county prosecutor predicts a 90 per cent
increase in felony crime prosecutions over the last three years.

"Decriminalized marijuana has proven to be anything but safe and
well-regulated in my state," the sheriff warned. "If I could give your
country any words of wisdom, they would be, don't sell the future of
your country to the pot industry." Too late, sheriff. The industry,
now in the clutches of powerful corporations and feverish investors,
is slathering over the immense profits to be made now that our flower
child PM has given them the all clear.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel joked a few nights ago that Canada is
becoming "the stoner in America's attic." Funny, yes. But insightful
as well. Next summer, when the stoners and those who feed off them
occupy our downtown, which will be enveloped in the acrid stench of
burning weed, we'll see who's laughing.
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MAP posted-by: Matt