Pubdate: Fri, 24 Aug 2007
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Mark Bonokoski, The Toronto Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Marijuana - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

HAVING SAMPLED THE MARIJUANA OF TODAY - PURELY FOR JOURNALISTIC 
REASONS -- I REALIZE HOW POWERFUL THE STUFF IS COMPARED TO THE HIPPY-DIPPY '60s

Yet another anniversary of the Great Walnut Avenue Bust is quickly 
approaching, bringing back memories of an evening spent locked up in 
the 52 Division holding tank with the usual weekend constituency of 
drunks, druggies, rapists, muggers and, in the mind's eye at the 
time, the prerequisite mass murderer with the zombie-like stare who 
was giving everyone the heebie-jeebies.

Time has not been an eraser.

One minute I am arriving home from working the night sports desk at 
Canadian Press, my part-time job while studying journalism at 
Ryerson, and, the next, long-haired undercover drug cops with their 
guns drawn are smashing down the door of the flophouse I am renting 
with three other students.

And all of us are busted for marijuana possession, a heavy-duty 
charge back in the hippy-dippy days of the early '70s when making 
love, not war, was the mantra, and cursed pot was the stepping stone 
on the devil's road to ruination.

Handcuffs, mug shots, fingerprints. The works.

It was quite the night. I even remember what I was wearing during 
arraignment, a pair of black jeans and a Fly United T-shirt showing 
two birds copulating in mid-flight -- not the most respectful apparel 
for making a good first impression in response to the clerk's 
utterance of "Will the defendant please rise," although future Sun 
photographer Barry Gray thought it was worth taking a pic for posterity.

The judge, however, must have been impressed. Not only did he give me 
bail, he later tossed out the charges against me -- but not without a 
quick lecture about how marijuana was a gateway drug that would lead 
to almost certain addiction and that, if I continued without a lesson 
learned, I was on a very slippery slope that would surely lead to hell.

Fast forward now to the 21st century.

A few weeks ago, the National Post wrote in one of its main 
editorials that the time had come to legalize marijuana in this 
country -- citing a UN report that says Canada now leads the 
industrialized world in cannabis use by a ratio of 4-to-1.

In fact, if the UN report is on the money, almost one in six of us 
under pension age regularly smokes pot, which is virtually a third 
more than in the United States. And, according to the UN, we smoke 
dope at almost three times the rate of the supposedly hemp-happy Dutch.

What I was going to write before the smoke got in my eyes was that I 
was all in favour of at least decriminalizing marijuana until I 
smoked a joint of the stuff that is now commonly available -- a 
single, tightly-rolled spliff of hydroponically grown cannabis that 
was "gifted" to me, shall we say, for "research purposes only."

And, let me tell you right now, the stuff of today is like heroin 
compared to the stuff that had me before a judge a quarter century 
ago, and I am not so sure that it would be wise to have it legalized 
when the THC levels are pushing the red line to uncharted heights.

Right now, there are makers of Ecstasy who are mixing crystal meth 
into their recipe, all to get young people addicted to what they 
thought was an uncomplicated rave drug perfect for a night in the 
Entertainment District.

What's next? PCP in pot?

No, if we could return to the hippy-dippy marijuana of the early 
'70s, with its 4% THC levels, its gentle buzz and Iron Butterfly 
refrains, well, maybe it might be okay.

But not when it comes to today's stuff.

When someone tells me today that ... hey, it's only pot ... well, I 
think incapacitation. One hydroponic joint had me legless for hours, 
unable to lift a finger let alone write a play-by-play about its 
effects as its effects took place. And that was my original intention.

In the rash of politicians to make a later-in-life confessions to 
drug use in their earlier years -- ie: Ontario Health Minister George 
Smitherman (party drugs?), former U.S. president Bill Clinton (who 
did not "inhale"), U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama ("pot ... 
and booze, maybe a little blow when you could afford it.") -- one of 
the more recent confessors is British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, 
admitting she smoked cannabis in her university days, and that "it 
was wrong that I smoked it when I did."

This put her in a bit of a pickle, since Britain is in the midst of 
making a U-turn in its toughening of drug laws by reclassifying 
marijuana as a Class B substance -- putting it in the same league as 
amphetamines and barbiturates -- which carry a maximum penalty of 
five years in jail for mere possession.

Britain, however, may be ahead of the curve in realizing that the pot 
of today is not the pot of the good old days of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida -- 
not when there are various forms of "skunk weed" in the mix, a 
powerful cross-bred strain of a marijuana that gets its name from its 
pungent smell.

As former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who heads the British 
commission on drug use, recently told The Observer newspaper, "We now 
know that cannabis is incredibly dangerous as a drug. For years 
people have been allowed to get away with this rather loose and 
wishy-washy idea that in the '60s we smoked it and it didn't matter.

"But in the '60s it was a much less potent drug, and now they have 
this stuff that is home-grown, which is at least 12 times more powerful."

And then he added this:

"The real effect is on young kids who take it," he said. "We 
regularly have kids who take it at the age of 11 or 12. If your brain 
is growing, you can kiss goodbye to that -- by the time you are 16 or 
17 you will be in a psychotic state."

Shades of Reefer Madness, deja vu all over again. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake