Canadian Weed

                                “Weed is blowing in the wind to the North”

Marijuana is now legal to purchase and use all across the grand expanse of La Belle Canada. Who would have ever thought it?

Predictably, the comics are all over the issue. A picture of an NHL Toronto Maple Leaf Player is featured on the internet. In place of the Red Maple Leaf, on his hockey jersey, is the outline of a blue Cannabis plant. I am sure the humor will continue. Maybe there will be advertising signs, from weed suppliers at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, that claim “Come Fly with me without the plane?”

We have many, many wonderful Canadian friends. As a group, they are buttoned down, proper in appearance and demeanor and well respected in their communities. Somehow, I can’t picture any of them placing a large water pipe bowl on the coffee table in their living rooms. Even more foreign is the idea of any of them puffing clouds of weed through the long water pipes. Of course, there would also have to be a large bag of Doritos, for use during the coming onslaught of munchies, right next to the water pipe. I can’t even imagine the high squeals of laughter erupting from the smokers as they watch some silly cartoon or other on the wide screen television. Or, maybe there would be a much more discreet, large, hand-rolled joint, passed along at the dinner table, as an after-dinner palliative? Nah! Not with the much-respected people that I know. It won’t ever happen. And of course, we know that all Canadiens are much too polite to ever “bogart that joint” as the rock song warns against.

As a part time resident of Buffalo, N.Y., a Canadian border town, there is much speculation, in our local press, as to the proposed onslaught of border crossers bringing a small stash of weed back into the USA. It would be a big mistake. The border guards are on the alert, for the errant smugglers, and just waiting to scoop up the careless.

It will be fascinating to watch the sociological impact, that the wave of weed has, on our friends to the North. Half of the State of Colorado is stoned at any given time, after their acceptance of weed, state wide. Will our polite and friendly Canadians follow suit? Nah! Not in this life time.

                                                      -30-

                                                (392 words)

                                            Joseph Xavier Martin