Pubdate: Mon, 30 May 2016
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Page: 6
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Mike Strobel

POT RAIDS A MASSIVE WASTE

A Real Case Of Reefer Madness

My police source, Deep Toke, has slipped me what he claims is a
transcript from the Project Claudia raids. The timing is perfect.
Toronto's board of health meets Monday to hash out the sale of weed in
our fair city. Mayor John Tory and police Chief Mark Saunders cracked
down on storefront pot dispensaries Thursday. Project Claudia hit 43
shops and bagged 90 people on trafficking raps.

(Editor's note: "Hash," "cracked," "hit," "bagged?" Cut the puns,
Strobel. This is serious. Did you never watch Reefer Madness?)

Sorry, bud. You're right. It is serious. Consider this excerpt from
Deep Toke's timely leak:

Dispatch: "All available units. 10-100. A ticking nuclear bomb has 
been discovered behind a Scarborough strip mall. All available units, 
please respond." All units: (Silence.) Dispatch: "Hullo? Did I 
mention 'nuclear bomb.' Car 54, where are you?"

Car 54: "Sorry, dispatcher. No can do. Transporting three potheads.
They're giggling and trying to eat the back seat."

Dispatch: "10-4. I'll try to talk the complainant through nuclear 
defusion procedures."

(Sound of pages turned, muffled phone conversation.)

Dispatch: "Right, any available units in Etobicoke. We have reports 
of a gang shootout at a children's party at a petting zoo in a busy 
mall in a residential neighbourhood. Even the ponies are armed. Units 
to respond? Adam 12, do you have ears on?"

Adam 12: "Nope. Busy, dispatch. Loading bags of Acapulco Gold. We're 
gonna need roof racks on these cruisers."Dispatch: "Right. I'll tell 
the kids to duck. OK, Zebra 3, Zebra 3? There's been a great train 
robbery on the Brampton GO. You in the vicinity, Starsky?"

Zebra 3: "Negative, dispatcher. We're tied up at Mary Jane's Bakery.
Two in custody. Hutch is testing some brownies we confiscated. This
could take a while."

Silly? Sure. But so is wasting an unspecified wad of money, untold
police man-hours and incalculable public goodwill on an unfathonable
operation with a mysterious name.

Claudia who? Schiffer? Rhymes with spliffer?

Chief Saunders whiffed at his post-raids press conference, defensively
touting an outstanding warrant unearthed at one site, and some cocaine
at another.

I bet they'd find as much if they raided 43 shoe stores, or 43
Internet cafes, or 43 newsrooms. For sure they'd find more if they
pounced on, I dunno, maybe, whatchamacallem ... gangs or other actual
criminals?

Our cops may be tops, even for us libertarians, but once in a while
they get goofy with power. Operation Soap, the infamous bathhouse
raids that inspired Pride Week, and the G20 outrage come to mind.

Project Claudia is in that vein - using a hammer on harmless citizens
and a victimless "crime," that soon won't be a crime of any kind, with
or without a doctor's note.

Those unerring cops of capitalism - free market and supply and demand
- - would have sorted out the dispensary issue.

Instead, 90 tokers, budding entrepreneurs, Bohemians and aging hippies
now face time in MONDAY, MAY 30, 2016 the joint, so to speak, a
criminal record, legal fees and all the things we bestow on muggers,
murders and thieves.

Meantime, the actual bad guys lurk in alleys and parks, shooting kids
and pregnant women. Is Saunders trying to justify his budget? To
mollify the mayor? To take one last kick at Reefer Madness?

Naturally, the board of health wants in on the action. Monday's
meeting will look at how to protect smokers, tokers and midnight
jokers - from themselves.

If those councillors had any cojones, they'd defy Tory and point out
that when you treat something as a crime, guess who shows up. Exactly.
Criminals.

But wait. More just in from Deep Toke:

Dispatch: "All units. Be on the lookout. Reported missing in Toronto: 
Freedom and common sense." 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D