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| Pot Smokers Don't Loot and Riot |
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Posted by FoM on July 08, 2001 at 07:34:07 PT By Connie Woodcock, Toronto Sun Source: Toronto Sun 
I stepped outside my front door the other afternoon and inhaled what should have been clean, fresh air but which turned out to be a cloud of marijuana. Not just a whiff of grass, but a big strong lungful. If you had been me, you would have been looking around the corner for the smoker and wondering how he could have run away so quickly. I, of course, knew better. We've lived on our street for eight years and have seen - or rather, smelled - the way air currents carry scents from the wooded ravine behind us, up and over the house and deliver them at the front door like junk mail. Long ago, we discovered to our sorrow that our ravine is a mecca for youthful dope smokers and drinkers. They climb up a concrete staircase from the main street and veer off the steps onto an old chunk of sidewalk that leads into a wooded hideaway. They can see out, but it's hard to see in. Certainly, none of the homeowners can see them unless they walk down to the edge and peer over. We might never have known without the wayward breeze that brings the unmistakable odour. Drinkers, on the other hand, are loud and they tend to do their drinking - and the accompanying yelling and fighting and smashing of glass - at night after everyone is in bed, and in nice weather they show up on a regular basis too. But unlike the smokers, you can't miss them. They're noisy and dirty. Our ravine, which looks so dense and verdant from below, is right now full of broken glass and pop cans and all the other rubbish that rampaging kids and/or adults leave behind. Once, during one of his regular ravine cleanups, my husband found a whole heap of scratch 'n' win lottery tickets (all scratched) which the police told him had been stolen from a local drug store. Party-Goers I was thinking about our regular visitors the other day when I read about the Canada Day riot in Edmonton. As many as 2,000 Canada Day party-goers, fuelled by plenty of alcohol, rampaged through a high end Edmonton neighbourhood, smashing windows and destroying property. Some of them were singing O Canada as they spilled out of the bars when they closed at 2 a.m. and began to create mayhem. There were 20 arrests and several injured police, including two whose bike helmets were cracked by chunks of flying concrete. One of the rioters was bitten by a police dog while resisting arrest. His photo appeared in a number of newspapers, his arm, on which a largish German shepherd was chowing down, clearly visible. "It was," one officer said, "a bad, bad night." Booze will do that, won't it? Now what do you suppose it would have been like if everyone in Edmonton had been smoking dope all evening? You and I know the answer to that one: by 2 a.m., everyone would have been asleep. For that is one of the positive results of marijuana use: you seldom see a smoker turn ugly. Mellow, yes. Boring, yes. Unpleasant, no. Booze, on the other hand, leads to nothing but trouble. Always has. Just ask the Edmonton police, or the residents and shopkeepers of the Old Strathcona neighbourhood where windows were smashed and shops looted. Few Businesses Escape Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage was done and few businesses in the area escaped . By the time it was all over, 95 officers were involved and only succeeded in calming things by using that old standby, pepper spray. Now I'm not saying marijuana is a good thing. I'm sure it's addictive and I'm also sure it can't be good for your lungs. Ever seen a joint with a filter tip? And I'm also not saying I approve of kids holing up in a ravine to do dope. But I am saying booze is bad - for the troublemakers in Edmonton; for the bozos who wander into my backyard clutching a bottle. Although I certainly don't condone trespassing, I'd really rather have kids smoking marijuana down in my ravine any day ahead of youthful dim bulbs with nothing better to do than suck down liquor and trash private property. The boozers are apt to do anything; the dope smokers cause no problems (unless you count the possibility of a small forest fire). If I were in charge of the laws of this land, I'd raise the drinking age to 21 and decriminalize marijuana possession. Isn't it time we stopped talking about it and did something? Note: Maybe we should raise the drinking age and legalize marijuana. Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON) Related Articles & Web Site: FTE's Canadian Links Canada Unveils Regulation for Use of Marijuana CannabisNews Articles - Canada Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 08, 2001 at 15:54:30 PT |
| I take this one out too. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #6 posted by lookinside on July 08, 2001 at 15:53:29 PT:
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| you are right...and please do... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by FoM on July 08, 2001 at 15:52:04 PT |
| I had to sacrifice the whole article too. Let's let this die. I'll remove my comment and yours so it won't start on another article. I hope you understand. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #4 posted by lookinside on July 08, 2001 at 15:48:14 PT:
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| i work in a profane world...our language on the job can be rather colorful...the term i used on here is the one i used with my friend...i used the * to respect the rules of this site...but the term i used says many things with great detail...it expressed my feelings at the time, and i think most folks here, who are familiar with the english language, understood me more clearly... hmmmm...was i saying: lol...i think we can assume the colloquialism that i used is like many things, it can be taken out of context...a [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Imprint on July 08, 2001 at 11:39:38 PT |
| As a kid going to concerts, the comparison of pot vs. alcohol was always highlighted. Pot smokers mellow and enjoying the concert and drinkers belligerent and disrupting the concert. One of the worst things drinkers leave behind at a concert was the vomit. Vomit on the seats, the walkways and in the bathrooms; the vile stench would just about make me sick every time. Unfortunately I had a friend die in a car accident because of alcohol. Drunk, speeding and bad weather made for one the worst accidents I have seen. Every year we hear about the increased police presence on New Years because of drunk driving. We hear about the drunk driving death toll of one year vs. another. We hear about the violence at bars and parties because of alcohol yet we never hear about pot in the same light. Pot doesn’t invoke the negative thought and emotions that alcohol does. Being a POW and being forced to go to NA, MA, AA meetings I get a new highlight of marijuana vs. alcohol. At virtually every meeting I go to I hear from the alcoholic that is suffering from liver disease. I hear their regrets and fear of the future. As of yet I haven’t hear from a single marijuana user (I use “user” instead of addict because I don’t believe marijuana is additive) that is dying from anything due to their marijuana use. Unless a crime is committed I see no reason to imprison anyone. I define crime as violence or destruction of property. Use of alcohol, marijuana or even junk food (it’s all the same to me) leads someone to commit a crime they should pay for it. Because it’s not if someone used any kind of drug prior to committing a crime, it’s that they committed a crime. That’s where our focus should be. Kaptinemo you are right, the negative affects of alcohol are glossed over. I would add one thing though; the negative affects of alcohol are glossed over when marijuana and alcohol are compared in the media. The negative aspects of alcohol are reported but never in the context of alcohol vs. marijuana. This is a rare article and it will go a long way to help educate the Canadian public. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #2 posted by lookinside on July 08, 2001 at 10:52:32 PT:
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| you said it as good as it can be said... alcohol at it's best is a "social lubricant"...at it's worst pot, in my experience, doesn't encourage people to yell, the choice is a no brainer... [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 08, 2001 at 09:04:28 PT:
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| And to anyone who professes to have an open mind. I don't have to go into the whole long litany of the biologically negative aspects of alcohol. But all too often, the negative social aspects of alcohol are simply glossed over. And I am not talking about the subject from some ivory tower perspective of statistics: I mean having to dodge profane, loudmouthed drunken louts armed with broken bottles and spoiling for a fight. Having to avoid a trail of vomit that stretched an entire hallway in my college dorm, leading to the bathroom...and an even more obscene mess curled around a toilet bowl. Drunks getting behind the wheel and killing a cousin of mine...who was run over while he was helping someone change a spare tire on the DC beltway. Having a drunken non-com urinate on my bunk - while it was occupied, dammit! - because he couldn't get to the bathroom soon enough. As you can see, I don't like what alcohol does to people. But unlike the antis, I am not about to blame the substance for the behavior of it's imbibers. If they can't 'hold their liquor', then shame on them. But they shouldn't be locked up unless they commit a crime. Polluting their bodies with rotgut is just stupid, but not criminal. LIkewise, a cannabis user has caused no trouble for anyone by 'polluting' his body, either. In all my 40+ years, I've never seen a pot head do any of that, Joyce & Frances and all you other antis; not once, not ever. No fights. No damaged property. No police having to come to someone's door and ask the parents to come to the morgue, we think we have your son there. We think he smoked himself to death at a frat party. Booze has caused more real damage to society than any supposed damage caused by cannabis consumers ever could. If you distill all the arguments pro-and-con down to whether society sustains any damage from drugs, weighing them on a scale, the minute the connection between alcohol=drug is established the weight of damage caused tips the societal scales so hard the alcohol side hits the ground with a mighty thump. It's just a no-brainer. The evidence is on every police blotter in the country. Has been for years. Which is why I prefer the company of cannabis users. I won't have to worry about visiting the local emergency room from being in close proximity to them [ Post Comment ] |
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