In fact, most think a writer's life runs something like this: Sleep until noon, clear the wine bottles off the bed, crunch across a living room filled with pizza boxes, scratch yourself, then fire up a joint while you fire up the computer. How else could someone come up with all those ideas, all that inspiration? Writers must use drugs. Besides, you'd have to be stoned to think you could make a living at it.

So it's probably no surprise that I, being a writer, support the legalization of marijuana. What may surprise you is why I support it.

First, set aside all your preconceptions about writers, Allan Rock and other shady practitioners of the arts and examine the problems of marijuana in the first place.

It's natural. It just kind of grows, as much a part of creation as hummingbirds and ocelots. The fact smoking marijuana makes you suddenly like progressive rock shouldn't make it illegal. It's common knowledge Australians lick toads to get high, but we don't see the full weight of the Australian judiciary criminalizing amphibians.

What should be criminalized is progressive rock, but no, our laws target an innocent weed and not Dave Matthews.

Secondly, there are misconceptions about the effects of marijuana. The general populace, courtesy of governments and mothers worldwide, think one inhalation of a joint will cause men to become axe murderers or find Monica Lewinsky attractive. All sorts of horrible things will occur and, if enough people partake, chaos will ensue, society will fall. In truth, anyone who has attended any party since 1954 can attest the most violent disturbances are courtesy of alcohol -- pot smokers are too busy giggling over the word purple.

The biggest problem with marijuana is simply its name: marijuana. It just sounds illicit. It evokes images of dusty bordellos on the Mexican border, cheap tattoos and waking up with more than a hangover.

It's a word that has no place in suburbia, with neatly cut lawns and Little League. It belongs to another world where people don't floss or even vacuum on a regular basis.

It's scary. It's enticing. It's . . . too natural.

Imagine the world if this inconspicious plant wasn't tagged with a name that sounds like the last cut on an Eagles album.

If some myopic British botanist had called it, say, "parson's delight," we'd now probably be handing it out to children on Halloween.

"Oh, here you go Johnny, take some parson's delight. And take these potato chips, you'll be wanting them later."

But back to my original point: marijuana should be legalized. And not because of the reasons relatively daring politicians float when they talk to anyone with a ponytail: the cost of prosecution, it's a soft drug, blah blah blah, beer's worse, and with pot you don't have to take back the empties.

No, I think marijuana should be legalized because it makes people stupid.

Once upon a time, in my wild youth, when I used to never return library books on time, I tried it. I imbibed the smoke that launched a thousand reggae songs. And to my complete disillusionment, I discovered . . . I didn't like it. It slowed my mind down.

I'm used to a consciousness that flickers from idea to image with the speed of a hundred television screens with ADD. Now, I felt like my neurons were trapped in molasses.

This, I thought, must be what being a football fan is like.

And so I never touched it again. But as I look around an ever more competitive job market and with younger and brighter writers coming up behind me, I need an edge -- a stumbling block to make the sweet, young things miss deadlines or decide to study Feng Shui instead. I need the competition stupid and lazy, and marijuana's the answer.

So legalize pot. Perpetuate the myth that writing isn't about work and determination, but puffin' a doob and listening to the Doors. That way, I'll still have a job.

Sean Twist is a London freelance writer. His column appears every other Saturday.

Source: London Free Press (CN ON)
Author: Sean Twist -- For the London Free Press
Published: August 24, 2001
Copyright: 2001 The London Free Press a division of Sun Media Corporation.
Contact: letters@lfpress.com
Website: http://www.fyilondon.com/londonfreepress/

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But sure, let Sean Twist think he's somehow got the competitive upper hand over his pot-smoking competition. We other writers know the truth. ;)

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But I no more subscribe to his 'stupid' theory than I would in Phogiston chemistry. Just one more hack playing at journalism, trying to ingratiate himself with his editors.

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