Pubdate: Fri, 29 Sep 2006
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Rosie Dimanno

WHIFF OF SPLIFF POLICE IN SMOULDERING ISSUE

Sitting on a bench in the common outside Trinity College, a lovely 
autumn afternoon, watching students drifting by, and envying them, 
wondering again why I denied myself this academic experience all 
those years ago.

Too impatient for the insulated un-reality of a classical education, 
rushing headlong into the embrace of the Toronto Star instead, at the 
tender age of 17. I feel both nostalgic for what I never had and regretful.

Then I open an email from a professor and am reminded, oh yeah, that's why.

"Greetings Rosie DiManno, yes, I did get your message and I 
considered it. I went home and read some of your work, especially the 
piece on the Domi family ... That is why I deleted your messages. 
Best wishes, Doug H.

"Ps. Please don't complicate my busy week by showing up unannounced, 
believing that this would make you my first priority." For a moment I 
was nonplussed. Then I chuckled. The fellow cracks me up. He may be 
condescending - a quality that seems bred-in-the-bone with academics 
and this one's a professor of ancient Greek philosophy, so he can 
hardly help it - but I like him more by the minute. Also by the 
subsequent emails, which will have to do, in lieu of a proper interview.

There had indeed been a brief face-to-face chat - before I checked my 
email on the tool-of-the-devil BlackBerry - outside the second-floor 
office of Professor Doug Hutchinson (this particular nook of the 
lovely college is called Angel's Roost; doesn't that make you sigh 
with longing for the ivy-shadowed world of dusty manuscripts and 
don's gowns?), me knocking on the heavy oak door (framed with quotes 
from both Plato and Jerry Garcia) and he popping out to say he didn't 
care to talk.

But he was nevertheless anxious to point out that there had been an 
error in a Star story published earlier this week about him. 
Headlined "Pot-smoking U of T prof lights up a room," the news 
article recounted how Hutchinson - who smokes marijuana for medicinal 
purposes and has a Health Canada don't-go-to-jail card allowing it - 
had arrived at an accommodation with university authorities. After 
protracted and often rancorous argument, the school has provided 
Hutchinson a separately ventilated room in the basement at Trinity 
College, so he need no longer scuttle about in search of clandestine 
places to toke. "Sometimes he'd hide behind garbage dumpsters or even 
climb trees to use the drug, which he says he needs to alleviate the 
pain from an undisclosed medical condition," the story said.

Hutchinson: "I didn't tell the reporter I hid behind garbage 
dumpsters. "I said I hid inside garbage dumpsters. I pointed out the 
error to my students."

Yanking my chain ever so gently. But I do appreciate wry humour. So 
let the record stand corrected: In the bin, not behind it.

Before being shooed away, ever so politely, I did manage to squeeze 
in one question, just because I was wondering. If Hutchinson in fact 
smokes up to 10 joints a day to relieve his pain, how can he teach 
with any cogency? I'm not an expert on pot - my drugs of choice are 
less organic - but allow me to relate here an incident from a few 
years back. While Canada was reviewing its drug legislation, I was 
dispatched to Amsterdam where soft drugs are completely legal and 
dope cafes more prevalent than bars. In the course of my "research," 
I was rendered so stoned-stupid that I was incapable of filing to the 
office for several days. Conversations went as follows. Editor: "You 
ready to file?" Me: "Tee-hee." Editor, 24 hours later: "How about 
now?" Me: "Ahhhhhmmm ..."

Hutchinson apparently has no such difficulties functioning. "I don't 
get high" - from maintaining a therapeutic dosage.

I do not question it. There's no evidence that any of his students 
have ever complained about Hutchinson's classroom demeanour or that 
he's anything other than an engaging teacher. The complaint, insofar 
as one existed, appears to have originated with an anonymous crank - 
my bet, a faculty colleague - someone who didn't care for the smell 
emanating from his office.

When Hutchinson opened the door to me, there was a distinct aroma in 
the room. I did wonder if he was smoking a spliff in there. In a 
further email dispatch (after scolding me for the "disagreeable and 
gossipy" column about Tie Domi's alleged romantic entanglement with 
Belinda Stronach and his estranged wife's divorce application): "I 
have never smoked in that office since I had the basement room. If 
you say or insinuate otherwise, that would be irresponsible ... what 
you smelled was my freshly ground medicine, of which you interrupted 
my preparation. I am not forbidden from preparing my medication here. 
Leaping to conclusions, as you were, can lead to unhappy landings."

The professor has leapt to conclusions about the columnist.

My point, if he had allowed me to make it, is the utter absurdity of 
forcing Hutchinson to run up and down stairs however many times a day 
he needs to seek pot relief, as a saw-off between his medical needs 
and draconian laws that circumscribe both drug use and smoking in 
public places. He's got a thick door and a tall window. Only a 
paucity of common sense, prevents authorities from acknowledging 
that's enough to constitute contamination-proof barriers.

We've made fools of ourselves, infantilizing and criminalizing 
consumers of substances completely lawful (tobacco) or quasi-lawful 
(marijuana), under the rubric of public health policy. It's not about 
public health It's about the sniff police and skulking 
whistle-blowers with too much time on their hands and little axes to 
grind. So we look wincingly provincial in excoriating actor Sean Penn 
for lighting up a dart at a Film Festival presser in Sutton Place 
Hotel - I'm suddenly a fan, though I think he's a ham - and 
embarrassingly sophomoric in the case of the nanny state and the 
professor. Rejection notwithstanding, I'm a Hutchinson fan, too. 
Strictly Platonic, of course.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine