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Pubdate: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 Source: Wheat City Journal (CN MB) Copyright: 2006 Wheat City Journal. Contact: http://www.wheatcityjournal.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2922 Author: Ron Petrie, the author writes a regular humour column in the Regina Leader-Post. Some of them are humourous. CANADIAN WEED BOARD WILL NEED A BIGGER CAFETERIA Eureka! Get this: The Canadian Weed Board. Eh? Eh? The column is now open for questions. Yes, you, Q, you have a question? Q: Just five. What? Why? Where? When? And, in particular, insofar as it certainly bears repeating: WHAT?! A: Exactly as stated. Parliament passes legislation not to abolish, not to weaken, but to preserve forever the Canadian Wheat Board, on two conditions: 1) instead of a soft "Wh..." and an "...e-t," a hard "W.." and an "...e-d," a virtual homonym, and 2) instead of selling grain, the marketing monopoly moves exclusively into cannabis, marijuana, goof grass, spliff, mary jane, dope, jazzleaf. Everybody wins. The Canadian Whe..er, Weed Board gets to keeps its existence as a 500-employee federal bureaucracy. Farmers, released from historic board restrictions and obligations, gain the freedom to sell their grain to anybody at any time. Q: Congratulations. Today's idea is without question the stupidest in the history of all time since Thursday's column. A: Please. Do not laud the column. Laud your federal government. A Canadian Weed Board is merely the logical extension of the past decade in major federal dope deals, such as federal approval of marijuana for medicinal use; the federal government's own grow-op in the mine shaft at Flin Flon (remember? high-ho, high-ho and off they go -- Doc, Dopey, Bashful and Sleepy?), and the draft legislation to take pot out of the Criminal Code. Estimates put illegal marijuana sales in Canada at $5-8 billion annually, roughly the same value of the Prairie wheat crop. Money, power, control over the business affairs of others, moral hypocrisy -- what part of a Canadian Weed Board wouldn't appeal to the federal government? Q: No. Something's very wrong here. Would not a Canadian Weed Board put the federal government in the business of drug-trafficking, which is illegal? A: Hmm. Good question, and one that deserves much more thought, a good chin-stroke. Perhaps the two of us, Q and A, could get together and further discuss the matter over a beer or two from the provincial liquor board's phenomenally profitable business of bootlegging and price-fixing, which is legal. Q: DUDE! A: What? Q: Dude, I'm, like, what you would call a, you know, an independent weed-grower? So, like, if I don't sell my stuff through the new Canadian Weed Board, like if I sold just to my regulars, privately, would I, um, would I...oh, man. I forgot what I was going to say. Whoa. A: Would you go to jail, just like a common grain farmer? Yes. Yes, you would. Yours is probably a moot point, however. Once the federal government gets into the business of dealing dope, the federal excise taxes and the federal overhead will send prices so high as to make pot unaffordable to 99 per cent of Canadians, thereby turning teenagers instead toward the alternatives of sports, music, art, science and life. Q: Well. You certainly have sold the public on the concept of a Canadian Weed Board. What now? A: What now is that the Canadian Wheat Board enters a transitional phase. Obviously the agency will need new letterhead, and a resigned logo. We'll tender all that out to private industry in the Canadian silk-screening and vintage long-play vinyl record sector. Neat thing is that "Canadian Weed Board" is already bilingual, pronounced the same by anglophones and by francophones attempting to say "Canadian Wheat Board." Obviously the board's product-testing division will need a way bigger cafeteria, open 24 hours. Otherwise, the systems itself stays. Weed growers would still receive an initial payment, and also, unless they forget, an interim and final payment. Permit books wouldn't change much, either, except for the valuable pizza coupons on the back pages. It would probably make good business sense as well to relocate the Canadian Weed Board headquarters away from Winnipeg, closer to the major international marketplace. No question British Columbia could use the economic boost. - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine