Pubdate: Thu, 04 May 2000 Source: Hour (CN QU) Copyright: 2000, Communications Voir Inc. Contact: : (514) 848-9004 Address: 4130, St-Denis, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2W 2M5 Website: www.afterhour.com Author: Charlie McKenzie ONE TOKER'S TREK Charlie Mckenzie Gives Us The Inside Dope On His Decades In The Front Lines Of The War Against The War On Drugs Marijuana and its open-minded missionaries have come a long way. Shunned as a thing accursed in Emily Murphy's day (see related story), pot has come full circle and into the mainstream. Even bastions of such right-thinking thought as Lord Wannabe's National Post are jumping on the bandwagon. At last count, two private-member's bills, assorted party resolutions and committee recommendations, and an all-dressed Senate inquiry were worming their way through Parliament in the lofty pursuit of marijuana reform. This Saturday, thousands of demonstrators in over 80 cities and 19 countries are expected to take part in the third annual Millennium Marijuana March. An estimated 5,000 Montrealers participated in last year's festivities and organizers expect three times that number this year. They're also getting more co-operation than anticipated from surprising quarters. "The police," said Bloc Pot head and march co-ordinator, Marc-Boris St-Maurice, "are co-operating fantastically. They have been helping us with the march route, crowd concerns and even the show after at Place Pasteur. We are in constant consultation with each other. To me, this is community policing at its finest." Times have definitely a-changed. When marijuana reformers first took to Canadian streets three decades ago, "community policing" had a much different meaning, but then, they definitely answered to a different community. Gastown: Je me souviens. Vancouver, circa 1970-72 was a hippie Mecca in this hemisphere, second only to San Francisco. Thousands of young people hitchhiked the Trans-Canada for the "west-coast experience" that was as much a part of that overblown era as roach clips and Day-Glo posters. As then Director of Youth Referral Services for the city of Vancouver - essentially a street worker with a desk - I was responsible for administering a network of youth hostels and emergency shelters to accommodate the incoming hippie hordes. It was a constant struggle, with a hostile administration led by a certifiably insane mayor named Tom Campbell, who despised the counterculture, and potheads in particular. Things came to an head in the summer of '71. Gastown was rapidly becoming a major - read: loadsadough - tourist area, and the very idea of dirty, dope-smoking hippies cluttering up the scenery and interfering with the flow of commerce greatly riled the powers that were. The police pitched in with a particularly odious bit of fascism called "Operation Dustpan," designed to hassle and arrest pot users and street dealers from the area. Tactics ranged from illegal searches of everyone found in certain bars, to mass arrests for items such as roach clips and rolling papers, to deliberate trashing of popular hangouts such as Goldie's Last Chance Saloon, where I personally took my first toke. To protest, the local wing of the Youth International Party - the "Yippies" - - called a "Smoke-in" for Saturday, August 7. That night, a few hundred freaks gathered in the heart of Gastown to smoke a ceremonial eight-foot joint. More symbolic than practical, consisting primarily of wet leaves and branches, it took forever to light. Thousands of curious tourists and innocent bystanders paused to watch and join in the festivities. Traffic was soon blocked in all directions, but most were partying too hard to notice, or even care. Suddenly, after a brief, half-hearted warning to disperse, the police went berserk. A squad on horseback in full combat regalia charged down Water Street and panic swept the crowd. Riot cops and undercover narcs suddenly waded in with flailing nightsticks. When the melee subsided, dozens had been arrested, and dozens more injured. According to unsubstantiated legend, one woman suffered a miscarriage when a policeman on horseback chased her into a crowded restaurant. No cops were ever charged for the Gastown Riot, but months later, an official inquiry by B.C. Superior Court Justice Mr Thomas Dohm blamed protest organizers and city youth workers for "creating the climate of confrontation." This Is Your Brain On Drugs Although people have been marching and protesting to end marijuana prohibition for over 30 years, if U.S. policy makers have their way, they will be marching 30 years from now. The U.S. is the world's largest marijuana-consuming nation, but experts agree that their government's paranoia remains the biggest single obstacle to global marijuana reform. No one can offer a rational explanation why this is so in the home of the allegedly free and brave, but when it comes to this innocuous little herb, official America definitely has a big bug up its butt. Long before Nancy Reagan came along with her "zero tolerance" and bullshit war on drugs, marijuana was considered a threat to life, liberty and the American way. I can personally attest to its subversive properties. Being young and foolish and a citizen of both the U.S. and Canada, I joined the Canadian army at 17, and the American army three years later. In the spring of 1966, I was stationed in New York City waiting to be discharged. The antiwar movement was beginning to take hold and one seductive night in the Village, a beautiful, long-haired nymph, smelling of patchouli lured me to her room at Columbia University with promises of "great sex and good pot" if only I would desert the army and go to Canada. I was leaving the army anyhow, and planned to come home anyway so I declined her proffered pot. As the war dragged on, Richard Nixon, Elvis and I came to same conclusion: Drugs - particularly marijuana - did as much to undermine the U.S. military's effort in Southeast Asia as the Viet Cong and Jane Fonda combined. In happy hindsight, the hippies were definitely on to something. Pot and the peace movement worked extremely well together. The War Continues Today's marijuana advocates still face numerous obstacles, but they can at least count on a wider support base from a more enlightened public. For the first time in our nation's history, a clear majority favour scrapping the marijuana laws altogether. Ailing pensioners and AIDS victims are of one mind on the medical question, while recreational users, past and present, are coming out of the closet, literally left and right. CCRAP leadership candidate, Stockwell Day, is only the latest campaigning hopeful striving for "hipness" by revealing his pot-puffing past. I suspect he'll not be the last. Things definitely seem to have changed for the better, but a word of caution from an old soldier: Don't believe everything you read in the papers, or anything you see on TV. While it is true that there have been some significant and successful court challenges, and there even a goodly number of sincere politicians seriously trying to change things, marijuana remains illegal. Away from the safety of numbers - few arrests are expected at the Millennium March; the cops are not that stupid - 10,000 Canadians will still be arrested this year for marijuana possession. They will be handcuffed, fingerprinted and photographed, then join the 600,000 other Canadians branded with criminal records for the same indiscretion. The war on drugs is not over by a long shot, and unbelievable as it sounds, after all this time, they still take prisoners. That's the real crime. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk