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Getting burned by the butt law
The Globe and Mail ^ | 6/3/02 | MARGARET WENTE

Posted on 06/03/2003 6:50:15 AM PDT by doc30

Last Jan. 18, police in New Glasgow, N.S., made a major bust. They managed to infiltrate Dooly's Billiard Room, where they observed several patrons committing illegal acts. Among those charged were barmaid Candace Mason, 21, and manager Terra MacLean, who were permitting customers to flagrantly violate the law.

In court, one of the constables told the judge that he had seen four people in the act of smoking cigarettes. He saw two other people sitting at a table with a lit cigarette resting in an ashtray. Not only that, there were ashtrays on every table, indicating a clear intent to flout the law. And even though the two women clearly had knowledge of illegal smoking, they had done nothing to stop it.

Under Nova Scotia's tough new Smoke-Free Places Act, that's a crime. Both smokers and the proprietors of establishments in which they're caught face fines of up to $2,000.

Forgive me for feeling slightly dizzy. But it's hard to comprehend that smoking cigarettes is about to be a bigger crime than smoking marijuana.

If the government's new pot bill passes (and God knows it should -- after SARS, mad-cow and West Nile, we need to mellow out), the fine for smoking a joint will be less in some places than the fine for lighting up a Marlboro. And no problem for the pool hall's barmaids, either. Nova Scotia's Smoke-Free Places Act stipulates that "smoke" refers only to tobacco.

"I think it's a perfect picture of just how ridiculous government is sometimes," says Halifax bar owner Victor Syperek, speaking for the anti-anti-smoking lobby.

Some of us remember when the world was a simpler place. Cigarettes were sophisticated, and everybody smoked everywhere. I loved going to university because you could puff away in class.

Pot, on the other hand, forced you to puff away in secret, or at your professor's house. The authorities would throw you in jail for weeks on end if they found an old roach in your car. This was a serious drawback. Also, smoking marijuana led to more dangerous addictions, though not the ones we were warned against. It produced an insatiable craving for jelly doughnuts from Tim Hortons, on which my friends and I frequently overdosed. Cigarettes, we found, make you thin and focused. Grass makes you fat and fuzzy.

But only the lower classes smoke cigarettes without shame any more. All the rest of us feel guilty. My friends hide it from their children, the way they used to hide it from their parents. "Please don't tell my son I smoke!" one friend begged me as she puffed away in the garage.

The new smoking bylaw is not popular in New Glasgow. "Most people don't agree with it," says Dawn Matheson, another bartender at Dooly's. "A lot of them feel it should be their own decision." New Glasgow, however, is a small and backward place. In the more enlightened centres of Halifax, Toronto and New York, the clampdown on smoking is widely applauded by the opinion elites as a sign of social progress.

Those same elites are mighty chuffed about Canada's move to decriminalize pot. They think it's just one more sign of how enlightened and progressive we are, compared to those backward yahoos across the border. They see no contradiction between decriminalizing one substance and banning a whole bunch of other ones, even though they are equally, if not more, innocuous.

In Toronto, you'll soon be fined $250 for spraying your grass with dandelion killer. (Common herbicides have already been declared illegal in Halifax and dozens of other cities because people believe they give children brain cancer.) In Halifax, people are forbidden to wear perfume or aftershave, because someone might be allergic to it. Back in Toronto, you can be fined for not sorting your garbage properly. I will say nothing of the criminalization of harmless gun owners, who are now forced to sign up with a $1-billion gun registry that has failed to halt a single gun crime.

Even the pot law isn't very liberal, since it says it's basically okay to smoke dope but even more wicked than before to grow and sell it. Try explaining this reasoning to your kids.

The government plans to square this circle with a $240-million public-education campaign about the dangers of the evil weed. (Warning: Dope can make you fat.) But it won't work. The new law will be a giant windfall for the triads, Hells Angels and the other swell folks who control the supply chain, as anyone who took Economics 101 can figure out.

The good thing is that decriminalization will free up the police and courts for more important things -- like prosecuting smokers. Back in New Glasgow, the judge let the Dooly's barmaid off the hook last week because she was just the barmaid, not the manager. The manager's trial is later this month. There are a dozen more like it in the works.

mwente@globeandmail.ca



TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: addiction; antismoking; canada; pufflist; smoking; wodlist
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Canadian government really has let its authority collapsed when smoking a cigarette carries a greater penalty than smoking pot in the same location.
1 posted on 06/03/2003 6:50:15 AM PDT by doc30
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To: doc30
It is utterly redamdiculus.
2 posted on 06/03/2003 7:04:57 AM PDT by Conspiracy Guy (Paper or plastic? That is the question.)
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To: doc30
Canada.....coming soon to a New York near you.

Socialists are busybodies.

Socialism isn't some grand social/economic scheme. It's the local gossips and busybodies somehow in charge of townhall.

3 posted on 06/03/2003 7:18:37 AM PDT by HatSteel
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To: HatSteel
"Socialism isn't some grand social/economic scheme. It's the local gossips and busybodies somehow in charge of townhall."

I thought that's what social conservatism was.
4 posted on 06/03/2003 7:33:13 AM PDT by ChicagoGuy
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To: doc30
Forgive me for feeling slightly dizzy. But it's hard to comprehend that smoking cigarettes is about to be a bigger crime than smoking marijuana.

And so many are looking forward to "legalized mj".

5 posted on 06/03/2003 7:35:49 AM PDT by cinFLA
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To: ChicagoGuy
The measuring stick is liberty, isn't it?
6 posted on 06/03/2003 7:36:48 AM PDT by HatSteel
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To: HatSteel
Exactly. I'm always amazed at the posters around here who seem so easily to forget the word 'free' in the website's name.
7 posted on 06/03/2003 7:38:30 AM PDT by ChicagoGuy
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To: ChicagoGuy
For what it's worth, since I've come to FR and had a chance to discuss with a number of folks from different walks, I've turned more and more in a "libertarian" direction in terms of "FREEdom."

There's real freedom and there's patriotic, jingoistic freedom. The latter kind says a barowner can't permit smoking in his own establishment.

8 posted on 06/03/2003 7:45:54 AM PDT by HatSteel
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To: doc30; MrLeRoy
The author really doesn't seem to see the forest for the trees, eh? Maybe she should stop to consider that it was the good old days of cracking down on pot smokers that led to the butt-heads finding themselves in the fix they're in now.
9 posted on 06/03/2003 11:23:34 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: ChicagoGuy; *Wod_list; jmc813
"Socialism isn't some grand social/economic scheme. It's the local gossips and busybodies somehow in charge of townhall."

I thought that's what social conservatism was.

Same difference.

10 posted on 06/03/2003 11:30:36 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: HatSteel
since I've come to FR and had a chance to discuss with a number of folks from different walks, I've turned more and more in a "libertarian" direction in terms of "FREEdom."

Testify, brother! I've heard statements like that before---oddly, I've never heard anyone claim the opposite.

11 posted on 06/03/2003 11:32:21 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: Wolfie; vin-one; WindMinstrel; philman_36; Beach_Babe; jenny65; AUgrad; Xenalyte; Bill D. Berger; ..
WOD Ping
12 posted on 06/03/2003 11:33:11 AM PDT by jmc813 (After two years of FReeping, I've finally created a profile page. Check it out!)
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To: doc30
In Halifax, people are forbidden to wear perfume or aftershave, because someone might be allergic to it.

what a nanny state

13 posted on 06/03/2003 11:33:40 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Neo-anderthal conservative)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Suppose they're also forbidden to have peanuts on their person?
14 posted on 06/03/2003 11:35:16 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: ChicagoGuy
I thought that's what social conservatism was.

Social conservatism = socialism of morality

15 posted on 06/03/2003 11:40:33 AM PDT by freeeee
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To: *puff_list
PUFF
16 posted on 06/03/2003 11:47:54 AM PDT by Just another Joe (FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: Wolfie
Maybe she should stop to consider that it was the good old days of cracking down on pot smokers that led to the butt-heads finding themselves in the fix they're in now.
If weed can be outlawed, smokes can be outlawed.
If smokes can be outlawed, junk food can be outlawed.
If junk food can be outlawed...

Oh, why bother going on? It would eventually come down to guns can be outlawed which is the end design.
Smoke 'em if ya got 'em! The smoking lamp is lit.
Molon Labe!

17 posted on 06/03/2003 4:03:47 PM PDT by philman_36
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To: HatSteel
I've turned more and more in a "libertarian" direction in terms of "FREEdom."

That's because you are a closet dope smoker and producer of child porn. It absolutely cannot be due to the fact that Libertarians propose a more "free" republic.....

18 posted on 06/03/2003 4:04:39 PM PDT by EBUCK (FIRE!....rounds downrange! http://www.azfire.org)
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To: Wolfie
If smokes can be outlawed, junk food can be outlawed.
Smokers 'to sign pledge' with doctors
Smokers and overweight people will be asked to sign contracts with their doctors to agree a programme to quit smoking and lose weight under radical plans being drawn up by the government.

Get my drift?

19 posted on 06/03/2003 4:07:24 PM PDT by philman_36
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To: EBUCK
It's not fair that you can accuse me of believing in Freedom and all I can do is stand and shuffle my feet and act guilty.
20 posted on 06/03/2003 7:10:42 PM PDT by HatSteel
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