cannabisnews.com: Political Puffery at its Best!





Political Puffery at its Best!
Posted by FoM on April 29, 1999 at 14:32:10 PT
Source: Toronto Star
 I FEAR WE may have yesterday witnessed the most astonishing boxscore ever to hit newsprint.I am speaking, of course, of the accounting by Ontario's three main political leaders of every puff, or lack thereof, of marijuana they ever took. 
Just what are we to make of the admission by Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty that he tried pot twice in high school, or by NDP Leader Howard Hampton that he smoked a bit in university, or by Premier Mike Harris that his preferred mood alterer was alcohol? Are we to conclude that one or the other demonstrates greater clarity of purpose, certainty of values, strength of character or respect for the law? Not likely. As to scofflaw-ism, what reporters might have asked the Premier after his announcement that ``I found booze a little more attractive'' was whether he ever drove drunk. He would be a rare bird, given his generation, if the answer were no. Let us say only that vastly more carnage has resulted from abuse of alcohol than from pot. The only thing generally assaulted after a gathering of potheads might be a lemon meringue pie. As to values and purpose, it's hard to see how hanging around North Bay strip bars drinking draught and watching peelers is much more character-building than a toke in the park. Odds are the different drug of choice was simply a function of the Premier being a little older than McGuinty and Hampton and a little scared of his late father. ``Mike had a very dominant father,'' a boyhood friend told author John Ibbitson in his book Promised Land. ``We were all a little bit afraid of him.'' As for the twin descents into reefer madness of the notoriously clean-cut McGuinty, it hardly seems to have nudged him off the straight and narrow. Compared to the Premier, he was a model of get-up-and-get. Law school. Married high-school sweetheart at 25. Immediately to work filling the nest with a family that looks to have walked out of a Gap catalogue. Succeeds father as MPP. Likewise for Hampton, who despite his crazed past seems to have managed law school, a hockey scholarship and a life of fairly steady accomplishment. Oddly, it was the Premier's youth, of the three, that seemed most marked by aimlessness. Like many of us, he stumbled out of the gate - with a failed stab at university, a failed first marriage, an aborted teaching career before going to work for his dad. In fact, one of his more annoying habits is the incessant trumpeting, despite such a modest c.v., of his credentials as a small businessman. He was at it again during yesterday's dope-off. Maybe McGuinty's support for more lenient penalties for simple possession comes, he sniffed, ``from being a former defence lawyer versus a small businessman.'' Please. It was his dad's business. The Premier's proficiency at golf and skiing is hardly evidence of an overworked youth. And, in any event, he was comfortably fastened on the public teat by 36. All in all, I doubt we're any the wiser for the mass confessional. I'm not even convinced McGuinty wasn't padding his pot-smoking a bit just to appear less priggish. And as for the Premier, well, we already know his flashbacks to younger days are occasionally hallucinatory. Not so long ago, during debate over what kind of diet could be had on reduced welfare rates, the Premier claimed that during the lean years of his youth he had eaten his share of bologna. Strangely, neither his first wife or father - who were providing his meals back then - could recall him enduring such modest fare. Maybe someone should listen to that tape again. Maybe he didn't say bologna. Maybe he said brownies. I posted the whole article because the link doesn't usually work after just a day or so.
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