"The true North, stoned and free" ...

A headline that was way too good to pass up.

Listen, Canada, we need to talk.

It's about your little pot habit.

Just look at these numbers from the United Nations. More people smoke in Canada than in nearly every other country. More than Jamaica. More than the Netherlands.

Dude, that has to tell you something.

Do you want to end up like Papua New Guinea or Micronesia?

Stop giggling. They are too real countries.

Canada is a nation of stoners.

According to the United Nations' 2007 World Drug Report released last week, Canadians lead the industrialized world in marijuana smoking. Canadians are four times more likely to have smoked pot in the past year than residents of nearly every other country: 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 use marijuana, compared to a global average of 3.8 per cent.

Why so high? ...

This follows on a remarkable tiff we've just had here in Ottawa over support for free [ed. that would be taxpayer funded] crack-pipe distribution. The argument went something like this:

Denying pipes to drug-users hurts us all
Re: Council kills crack pipe program, July 12.
I protest this shortsighted and ideologically based move. ...

VS:

Ottawa harm reduction program increasing crack smoking; Up to 80% of drug users engage in "unprotected" sex
Crack program cut disease: study: But free paraphernalia also increased drug use, AIDS conference told

New crack pack

"It's one of the most ironic, mixed messages a municipal government could send to people," Mr. Chiarelli said. "We spend thousands to arrest them, and then spend thousands to supply them with the paraphenalia."

Although police Chief Vern White has opposed the program, he supported a review. Residents of a Sandy Hill neighbourhood who had come to protest the review were jubilant. They said since the city had introduced the program, crack use has increased significantly in their neighbourhood.

Police inspector Lance Valcour, who has walked the beat along Rideau Street and through Sandy Hill for 30 years, said crack cocaine is like the cheap sherry of days gone by. "If you have $3 to spend and you can get a tall boy (beer) for $3.80 and a piece of crack for $3, what are you going to do?"

Earlier, the group of about 25 residents marched to City Hall with bags of used crack pipes they'd picked up on their front lawns. They clashed with a small group from the AIDS Committee of Ottawa who yelled "Crack kits save lives."

As a shouting match ensued, Mayor Larry O'Brien arrived, and stood with used crack pipes sprinkled at his feet. He had to ask his staff for protection from the boisterous protesters.

"We need treatment centres," he told the group. "The last thing we need to do is serve the drugs. This has got to end."

Cracked me up, it did.