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.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine