Pubdate: Wed, 17 Feb 2016
Source: Sooke News Mirror (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Sooke News Mirror
Contact:  http://www.sookenewsmirror.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2142
Author: Rick Stiebel
Note: Rick Stiebel is a Sooke resident and semi-retired journalist.

PM NEEDS TO QUIT BLOWING SMOKE AND GET OFF THE POT

We are surrounded by quasi criminals wherever we live in Canada, 
maybe even more so in Sooke. They are the pastors who baptize our 
babies, the doctors we see for what ails us, the politicians we vote 
for, the police officers who pull us over for speeding and the 
plumbers who repaired our leaky faucets last week.

The fact is multiple generations of the good folks in Sooke and 
across the country are engaging in criminal activity at any given moment.

You can smell the evidence on the clothes of the person sitting in 
front of you on the Sooke 61 at 7 a.m. on your way into work, in the 
lineup at Village Foods or on certain stretches of Sooke Road on a 
hot summer's day, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

They are the millions of otherwise law-abiding Canadians from all 
professions, ages, races, backgrounds and income brackets who choose 
to smoke marijuana, unhindered by the consequences or the fact that 
what they do is against the law. Their numbers grow unabated as we 
attempt to punish them in a system that has already wasted billions 
fighting a war it cannot win.

There is hope or despair on the horizon, however, depending on your 
point of view, because last year we finally elected a prime minister 
who promised to prioritize legalizing something many of us already 
grow in our gardens.

At the very least, legalization would eliminate a portion of the evil 
element that currently benefits from the existing hypocrisy. We can 
use the profits to reduce harm, finance improvements to our health 
care, our quality of life and education if we handle the transition 
with intelligence and foresight.

Unfortunately, it's too late for Eddie, a former schoolmate with 
blond, shimmering shoulder length hair, a quiet, keep to himself kind 
of guy who lived to play his guitar. Eddie was 18 back in the summer 
of '69 when he paid a horrible price for his preference for an occasional puff.

Eddie was sentenced to the max of the day, four to seven years for 
trafficking, and dispatched to St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary - an 
institution the most hardened inmates referred to as the brain eater 
- - after he was arrested for selling a couple of joints to an 
undercover cop at an outdoor concert at a park in Montreal.

He made the mistake of having a drink of water without looking behind 
him on his first day of incarceration, and someone slammed his face 
into the fountain, smashing out most of his teeth in the process.

That's why I pray that Justin gets right to it and, more importantly, 
gets it right. Eddie and countless others paid the price and had 
their lives ruined doing something that barely raises an eyebrow 
nowadays, but is still against the law in our home and native land.

It's time, Mr. Prime Minister, to get on the pot.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom