cannabisnews.com: Vancouver is Lit for Games





Vancouver is Lit for Games
Posted by CN Staff on July 01, 2003 at 07:13:26 PT
By Ron C. Judd, Times Staff Columnist
Source: Seattle Times
Vancouver, B.C. — British Columbians are ready for the Olympics. Are the Olympics ready for British Columbians? The question is appropriate only because this city's approach to the Games and all things Olympic is so refreshingly, well, Canadian. Not in a Mounties-and-Moosehead kind of way. In the free-spirited, don't-worry-what-people-think kind of way. Count on this: If Vancouver/Whistler, which is perched on pins, needles and anything else that implies pent-up nervousness, is chosen tomorrow as the site of the 2010 Winter Games, they'll make the 2002 version look like a church social. 
Recall that the last time the cauldron was lit on the West side of North America, the Olympic hymn was sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The next time the flame lights up in the same region, the world will receive a hearty "Welcome to B.C., Bud," by the likes of Ross Rebagliati. The name should ring a bell, if not set off smoke detectors. Ross the Boss was the world's first snowboard gold medalist, claiming that honor in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. Alas, it wasn't what he did that day that gave Rebagliati a place in Olympic infamy. It was what he was alleged to have done several months before. Rebagliati tested positive for marijuana, thus becoming the first Olympic champion to be stripped of a gold medal for use of a performance-impeding drug. In spite of a full-day grilling by Japanese authorities, the Vancouver native stuck to his story: He had quit smoking the evil killer weed a year before, he said. Any lingering degree of doobie in his bloodstream had to come from second-hand smoke. As it turned out, Rebagliati found a loophole: Ganja wasn't technically forbidden by the International Olympic Committee then. He got his medal back. In America, Rebagliati became the butt of many a late-night talk-show joke. And to this day, because his name comes up on an immigration watch list, he's not allowed legal entrance into the United States. In Canada, he became a hero. Shortly after the Nagano Games, Canada's beloved "Acapulco Gold" medalist was inked to a hefty endorsement contract by Roots, the hip Toronto sportswear company. Roots later outfitted the U.S., British and other Olympic squads and became as visible a part of the Olympic movement as you'll find. And, in spite of its association with bigger and more recent winter-sport stars such as Horribly Wronged figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, Roots has kept Rebagliati, 31, front and center in its 2010 Winter Games campaign. His face is on the company Web site, advertising a line of Vancouver-specific Roots sportswear. His face is on the posters in the shop at Robson and Burrard, beneath piles of 2010 merchandise being scarfed up by the armload this week as Canadians prepare to celebrate their first Olympics since the snuffing of the torch over Calgary in 1988. This in spite of Rebagliati's very public association with an ongoing Canadian movement to soften penalties for marijuana. Rebagliati, fearing even further U.S. border-patrol retribution, has been reluctant to cheerlead a federal proposal to make possession of small amounts of dope an offense on the level with a traffic citation. But he doesn't shy from the subject. "Canada is an open, multi-cultural country, so it (decriminalization) is probably consistent with our views," he told the Canada National Post last month. His association with a major sportswear company would be unthinkable across the border in the States, whose government remains mired somewhere in the middle of a long-ago declared War on Drugs that nobody seems to be winning. Yet Canada offers no apologies for its favored son, who lives and rides in Whistler and remains something of a counter-culture hero. "We've never felt any backlash for it whatsoever," said Rich Patterson, Roots' Western Canada sales and marketing manager. Rather than freak after the drug-test incident, "We felt a lot of respect for the way he stood up for himself and told the world that he deserved that gold medal," Patterson said. It was an underdog thing, Patterson explained. Canadians can relate to that. And lately, even act on it. Signs of uprising — and a new fulcrum for the old Canadian-U.S. cultural and economic balance — are everywhere this year. The maple leafers opposed the U.S. war on Iraq. They made no apologies to their blushing twin son of a common mother by endorsing same-sex marriages. And they're willing to risk the wrath of the White House — and retribution in the form of intense drug searches that create long border waits — by loosening already lax drug laws. The issues, for our purposes, are less significant than the issuance: Canada these days is making its own way, deploying its own rudder rather than clinging to life-raft America. Call it right, call it wrong, or just relax and concede it's different. Americans who join the world here in 2010, assuming the bid decision goes Canada's way, will learn a lot about a nation that remains inexplicably foreign to them, in spite of a longstanding connection at the hip. Guess what? That's what the Olympics are all about. And it's one reason Canada should shine in the kind of spotlight that only those five rings can provide. Source: Seattle Times (WA)Author:  Ron C. Judd, Times Staff ColumnistPublished:  Tuesday, July 01, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Seattle Times CompanyContact: opinion seatimes.comWebsite: http://www.seattletimes.com/Related Articles: The Last Word - Canadian Presshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16216.shtmlWhy More Jocks Turn To Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16194.shtml
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on July 02, 2003 at 08:43:42 PT
Canada Won! 
The Olympics in B.C. in 2010 is wonderful news! Go Canada! You are our hope for ultimate freedom! Can you imagine people being able to smoke Cannabis at the Olympics? 
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Comment #1 posted by afterburner on July 01, 2003 at 09:40:03 PT:
A Canada Day Gift to Canadians and US Neighbors
Church of the Universe Hour: Ralph Metzner http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-677.html
Church of the Universe Hour with Dustin Cantwell and Reverend Damuzi http://www.pot-tv.net/ram/pottvshowse677.ram 
Running Time: 20 min 
Date Entered: 17 May 2001 
Viewer Rating: 8.25 (8 votes) 
 
Number of Views: 798 
 Reverand Damuzi talks to pioneering psychedelic researcher Ralph Metzner about his work and research. Filmed at the Entheobotany 2 Conference by Ci Ci the Tap Dancing Chef.
The chemistry is in your own mind. "The thoughts are free.[-German folk song]" Cannabis is a filter to "cleanse the doors of perception.[-Aldous Huxley]" Enjoy your cannabinoid system today, on Independence Day, and every day of your life.ego transcendence follows ego destruction, as they say in Jamaica, "Soon come!" 
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