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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Canada: OPED: Pro-Pot Folk Find Splendour in Grass
Toronto Star
Saturday 24 Jan 1998 Last week, we talked anti-depressants. This week, we turn to another mind-altering matter - marijuana - and the recent debate about its legalization. Of course, for some there is no debate. A recent spate of letters to The Star was overwhelmingly pro-pot, with writers fuming about how booze and cigarettes are legal, while grass, which helps AIDS and chemotherapy patients fight nausea and other ills, remains illegal. According to a recent poll, 83 per cent of Canadians believe that marijuana should be legal when used for ``health purposes'' - although, I suppose, ``health purposes'' can mean anything. And just a couple of months ago, Murphy Brown viewers watched staid old Jim Dial score - ``I've even got cash,'' he confided to the dealer - to help his stricken pal battle her breast cancer. Even the February Shape magazine is onside, with writer Sharon Cohen detailing how THC, marijuana's primary active ingredient, works for those suffering from glaucoma, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries. Only a token amount of ink is devoted to the downside of dope, the usual stuff about how smoking causes lung damage. But, for the straight dope on dope, there's no better source than High Times, which, for 24 years, has been fighting the U.S. feds and, along with sister publication Hemp Times, lobbying hard for the legalization of the wonder weed. Now, according to news on its Web site, http://www.hightimes.com/ it looks like its efforts are not going up in smoke. What's happened is that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Adminstration (DEA) has ``quietly affirmed that, based on evidence that has been published in High Times magazine, sufficient grounds exist to investigate whether marijuana should be made available for medicinal use.'' Well, praise the Lord and pass the . . . oh, never mind. You have to hand it to a bunch of folks who, since 1974, have risked the slammer for their singlemindedness. And make no mistake: High Times takes chances, starting with its centrefold, always a photo of a lasciviously lush green field or a hugely hunky chunk of hash. Where do the pictures come from? Who takes them? Don't the narcs want to know? There's also ``Trans-High Market Quotes,'' which, in recent years, has become a hotline readers call to learn if they're paying too much cash for their stash. In fact, this nod to modern technology is just about the only change High Times has made since its early days. Seemingly stuck in a time warp, the monthly celebrates '60s stoner culture as if the coked-up '80s and the cracked '90s never happened. From pot profiles to parties to politics, High Times offers hints for home growers, tips for tourists and advice on beating drug tests - advice that operators of heavy machinery and 747 pilots better not be taking. (If you're already flying, that's high enough.) Mind you, High Times is not the greatest read on the stands. Its single-mindedness is tiresome, its design boring and its writing not very interesting. That said, there's clearly a mighty market for the long-lived High Times (circulation: 300,000), which, like Hemp Times (circulation: 60,000), is tightly packed with ads for hempwear and pot paraphernalia. What you won't find within, however, is a single trendy ad for vodka, which, although legal, probably has harmed more people, families and communities than any amount of grass. But still, according to High Times, U.S. pot busts climbed to more than 600,000 in 1996, the third successive record high. In Canada, police made 29,562 arrests for marijuana offences in the same year. Not only is this an expensive way to tie up the justice machinery - aren't there more heinous crimes being committed? - it's also indicative of, for better or worse, marijuana's growing availability. Millions of people think governments should wake up and smell the winds of change. Maybe we should roll with the High Times, as it were.
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