Pubdate: Wed, 23 Apr 2014
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Page: A4
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Shelley Fralic

IS IT JUST ME OR HAS 4/20 BECOME SANCTIONED STONER-FEST
INSANITY?

Celebrating Cannabis: Modern Day Reefer Madness Is Sending The Wrong
Message

With the weekend news came a fascinating double standard playing out
on the streets of Metro Vancouver.

On one hand, we had reports of local police officers issuing record
numbers of tickets to jaywalkers, along with stern warnings about how
foolhardy it is to dart across a street without the aid of a crosswalk
or a traffic light, and about how law enforcement is all about
protecting us not just from the bad guys, but from our own bad choices.

Then, on the other hand, we had thousands of people converging for an
Easter Sunday afternoon of cannabis love. Men, women, young, old, east
side, west side, hippie, banker. They danced, they sang, they bought
and sold and smoked joints and bongs and sported tie-dyed T-shirts and
lusty appetites for the pizza delivered by a clever
entrepreneur.

The former is one of those crackdowns designed to remind us that some
laws really are for our own good.

The latter is an annual event called 4/20, reportedly a 1970s
reference to the time of day (4:20 p.m.) when a group of California
youngsters would meet up after school to toke at leisure without the
bother of academic interference.

And, so, on a sober Monday morning, you reflect and wonder about the
sheer lunacy of a world that criminalizes jaywalkers but has propelled
an illegal drug into an acceptable social movement.

If we are to believe our eyes, it seems now perfectly normal to throw
a law enforcement-sanctioned public party in the core of a major city
to promote the decriminalization of yet another drug that will add to
the social, mental and physical turmoil already created by legal and
illegal vices like tobacco, vodka and Vicodin.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Forget, for a moment, all the cogent arguments on both sides of the
should-we-or-shouldn't-we decriminalize pot debate, all those
disparate opinions like whether pot is, or isn't, a gateway drug and
whether pot is, or isn't, a natural pain reliever (oh dear, did Health
Canada and a Nanaimo grower just recall a batch of bad medical
marijuana?).

Forget the pretzel logic of allowing a bunch of stoners to wilfully
break the law in an effort to change the law.

Forget, too, the unanswered questions that come with welcoming another
destructive drug into the mainstream, issues like: Is pot sidestream
smoke as bad for innocent bystanders as is cigarette sidestream smoke,
and will roadside breathalyzers be recalibrated for blowing smoke, and
will cancer agencies be forced to launch anti-smoking campaigns with
photos of weed-ravaged lungs?

Remember, instead, that being able to pick one's own poison, be it
cabernet, crack or Purple Kush, with impunity - and for the record, I
say legalize pot already, because it will help cut out the dangerous
middle men, and the taxes the government collects will help pay for
the havoc it wreaks - is a pipe dream, otherwise seat belts wouldn't
be mandatory.

And consider the embarrassing reality that we are a society in which
420 rallies and pot purveyors like Marc Emery and television shows
like Weeds and stoners like Snoop Dogg and Cheech and Chong have
become revered cultural touchstones.

And then maybe ask yourself the bigger question: Why is it that so
many of us can't seem to get through another minute of the day without
self-anesthetizing? Lord, is life here in paradise really that bad?

And why is it that we think we have a right to do a drug however,
wherever and whenever we want (hey, let's get the SkyTrain all skunky)
without at least acknowledging its consequences?

Marijuana may be of the earth but it's hardly benign. If modern-day
pot wasn't mind-bending - and, by association, brain-altering,
according to many an expert and, increasingly, more studies - what's
the point of smoking it?

Why would anyone bother to pass the dutchie to dopiness if it didn't
provide the warm and foggy fuzzies, a release from our cares and woes?

Back to the annual Easter pot-fest, which seems to have supplanted
Earth Day festivities and peace parades as Vancouver's new spring
civic celebration.

Getting high on an illegal drug while cops stand passive on the
sidelines and taxpayers ante up to block off a street is apparently
what we consider a victory in this town.

That, and sending a loud and proud message to our children and
grandchildren that one can do what one wants, where one wants. Oh, and
if you can do so while lit, dulling down the glory of reality, the
beauty of an unblurred life, no harm there.

This is worthy of sanctioned celebration? It's reefer madness. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D