The Royal Weed

I have to admit a little bit of Schadenfreude when I found out that the soon-to-be-legal pot in Ontario will be sold through a small number of government-owned stores. I mean, I've always supported legalization, so that's good. But the government-owned stores concept gives me mixed emotions.

Just to be clear, I think this is a dumb decision by the government. It's essentially replicating Ontario's traditional way of selling alcohol in government stores. That never made sense to me: Alcohol isn't really dangerous enough to require such oversight, the government-run stores did nothing to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors, and for some reason, we're totally okay having private companies sell tobacco. And of course, we're now moving away from that approach in alcohol, selling it in grocery stores. That change, and the complete lack of a societal collapse resulting from it, would seem to show that the old approach was wrong, and we know it.

The decision to sell pot through government stores also makes little sense politically. Premier Wynne and government may be looking at this as a compromise between a ban and complete deregulation, so it will be a good way to sell the public on a change not everyone in comfortable with. But I think it's more likely to cancel-out support. Libertarians will hate the government control. Social conservatives won't be placated because they've been taught that pot is the creation of Satan, so careful distribution of the creation of Satan will seem no better. And even left-leaning people like me will see the move as paternalistic, rather than socialist.

Further, it looks like Wynne is developing a Hillary-Clinton-like anti-cult where a large segment of society has decided that they just don't like her or anything she does, not really sure why, but it couldn't possibly be sexism, really, I'm sure. As such, trying to reach a please-everyone compromise is impossible; people will just focus on what they didn't get, because the narrative is that everything Wynne does is bad. It doesn't really make sense for her to try to grab the centre; she'll find little traction there. She'd be better off trying to prove here bona fides to the left where more people will give here a chance.

But I am having a bit of Schadenfreude for Canada's prince of pot, Marc Emery. See, I've been waiting years for a chance to talk about him so that I could point out that I've actuality met him. After bragging about this to someone, that other person would then ask, "how did you meet him?" And I'd reply, "he spoke at my high school."

Okay, he technically spoke at our model U.N. assembly, invited by a school that was drifting towards the proto-alt-right. Back then, Emery wasn't concentrating on legalizing marijuana; he was just a general hard-core libertarian. For me, that was the beginning of a lifetime of finding extreme libertarianism both fascinating and scary. It's like how you might enjoy mob movies, but then you find out that people actually look up to their characters and suddenly it's not so much fun.

So I've taken note whenever Marc Emery's name has come up, as he's moved out west and taken marijuana as his life's cause. Living in Vancouver, he won't have to care about Ontario's nanny-state pot stores. But I'd like to think that his head did explode just a little bit when he heard about it.

Weed The North

In politics, we often think that there's little difference between parties and politicians.  We're seeing that in the U.S. as members of both parties wrestle with the choice of mainstream candidates or people who promise to shake up the whole system.

But the truth is, the all-politicians-are-the-same idea is only true if you're a radical who thinks destroying the system is more important than any change you can make within it.  Actually, politicians and parties have a lot of differences with real consequences.  Here in Canada, we've seen a lot of evidence of that in the first six months of the Liberal government.  Just in the last week:

• Assisted-dying legislation has been proposed
• The Prime Minister bragged that he knows about science
• We've started seeing ads warning us the long-form census is coming
• Politicians of all stripes have started caring if native people live or die
• Omar Khadr is apparently getting on with life
• The government has announced a timeline for legalizing pot

Why, if it wasn't for that cutesy little clip of the first bar of the national anthem in the census commercial, I wouldn't know what country I was living in.  Okay, that and selling arms to a morally-deplorable country because there are jobs in it.

And as a further tweak of the nose of the Conservatives, the pot plan was announced on 4/20. It's hard to believe that so many changes are happening with so little anger.  Of course, some of that is because the Tories' interim leader, Rona Ambrose, has a very different vision of the party than Stephen Harper.  And the fact is that Conservative opinion was never as uniform as Harper made it seem.  A lot of what his government did or didn't do was a result of political expediency, rather than widespread desires within the party.

It'll be interesting to see where this marijuana legislation goes, culturally.  We tend to think of the War On Drugs as an American thing, but the fact is that it's built into international treaties signed by almost everyone.  But there seems to be a growing belief that we need to change, so you can imagine the hardcore anti-drug consensus collapsing.  But it's hard to imagine the U.S. government backing down, so liberal drug laws could end up like the metric system - accepted everywhere except the States.  And since the drugs are measured in metric, that seems appropriate.

But, wait!  Some of the boldest legalization is coming from inside the United States.  So it appears that this is just going to be the latest battleground in their cultural civil war. And the usual way that works is that the other countries of the world choose a side and entrench themselves, while watching the frontlines of the battle pushed back and forth across America.  As always, we in Canada have a front row seat, so we'll be watching, and giggling.

Chief Administrative Officer Of Simpleton

I notice there's a local business called XTC. See, it sounds like "ecstasy" geddit? You occasionally see those letters used together, since:

• It sounds clever
• The word implies positive, joyful feeling
• For the last twenty years or so, it also implies a dangerous, rebellious side, thanks to the drug Ecstasy
• No one can remember how to spell extacy

Probably the most famous use of the alphabetic pun was the eighties new wave band XTC, though people unfamiliar with its previous use have been rediscovering and reusing the name ever since.  For instance there used to be a record store in Kitchener called "X-Disc-C." (I assume it would be unrelated to the business I saw today.

But what's worth mentioning here is that on closer inspection of the sign, I saw that this was "XTC Logistics." So I'm left wondering what led them to think that "ecstasy" was the thing needed to sell business logistics. Even before you get to the drug connection, that seems weird. And Ecstasy isn't exactly the drug you would want associated with business logistics; it doesn't sound too efficient. Surely you'd prefer to hire Crack Logistics.

So I can only assume that this business was founded by someone who was a big fan of the group.  Their best known song was "Making Plans for Nigel."  That's sort of like logistics.  But I'd still want to get a competing bid from Flock Of Seagulls before hiring them.

Take The Pink Pill And Believe Whatever You Want To Believe

The "Female Viagra" is in the headlines. That's what the media is calling the first drug to increase women's sexual desire, which I'm sure the company's marketing department just loves. I've seen several stories on the drug, one of them just ten minutes ago, and I don't remember the drug's actual name.  I just know that the pill is pink, in contrast with Viagra's equally stereotypical blue.

Addyi (I looked it up) is controversial because it's struggled to get approval, and required a PR campaign by the manufacturer playing on the perceived unfairness of the huge number of drugs available for men's erectile dysfunction, to the complete lack of drugs for women.

I can't speak to the issue of whether it should be approved, but the thing that has bugged me about this story is that it is quite simply not the female Viagra. Viagra is a drug for men who want to have sex but find it physically difficult. This drug is for women who (presumably) are physically able, but don't want to.  It's a depressing statement about our attitudes towards sexuality that we confuse two things that are so different; it's as though we just file both ideas under this vague category of "sex stuff" and don't examine them further.

As such, it brings up a difficult ethical question. I'm not aware of any other drug that makes people want something. See, there is a small but significant group of people who consider themselves asexual, because they experience little or no sexual desire. And they seem to be reasonably happy, and bristle at the idea that they need to be "cured."

However, a person with no libido may still want companionship, and it appears that among humans, sex is a key part of that. Further, if you've lost your desire while in a relationship, that will cause tension. And that's the biggest practical argument I've seen for this drug: women in a marriage who are worried that if they don't provide sex, then their partner may go elsewhere for it. I can understand that predicament, but it makes the PR campaign take on an ugly tone: the claim by the ads was that it was unfair that men have their sex drugs, but not women. Yet, scratch the surface and you find that the main beneficiaries of the new drug are primarily the men married to the women taking it.

He's Too High To Be In Way Over His Head

We've heard plenty about Justin Trudeau's admission of marijuana use, and that's before the Conservatives have even had the chance to make an attack ad about it.  I find that kind of troubling; it's evidence of the Americanization of Canadian politics.

And just to be clear, I'm not using "American" as a simplistic insult, as in, it's American so it must be worse.  But I do believe that overall, our political culture has been better than theirs.  And a big reason is that we tend to take a practical attitude to things.  We don't get caught up in Obama's bowling score or Romney's dog transporter. At least we used to: here we are spending days discussing a politician's occasional use of a drug most of us aren't really worried about.

Yes, there are reasonable arguments as to why cannabis shouldn't be accepted, but I have trouble believing that many Canadians really believe in those arguments.  Why?  Because if you really believe strongly that marijuana shouldn't be part of civilized society, then there are bigger things to worry about in Canada than the odd toke by the leader of the third party.  Nearly half of Canadians have used it, and more than 12% use it at least once per year.  So if you feel this drug is truly dangerous, then you should already be scared into taking political action.

People are condemning Trudeau even though there hasn't been a large national push against marijuana use.  That tells me that either they're just looking for something to get angry about, or we've fallen into the American trap of judging our politicians by a social code fifty years behind the one we use in our personal lives.

Green Tape

Here's everything you need to know about governance in Canada.  They can legalize Medical Marijuana, but they can't spell it.

 

It's not a government office, but a marijuana accessories store.  Later, I saw an employee out front smoking - a cigarette.  I found that quite disappointing.