The Citizen, 2011-02-24, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011. PAGE 5.
Ilove the concept of the tipping point – the
idea that there can be a single moment in
time when one last critical molecule of
resistance crumbles and the whole damn
mountainside comes down. Egypt recently
found its political tipping point. Rosa Parks
was a tipping point for racial discrimination in
America. That first third-period Russian goal
against our Canadian Juniors (cruising, at the
time, to an easy, predicted 3-0 victory) was a
sports tipping point. The Russians poured in
four more unanswered goals to trounce the
Canucks and take the title.
I believe another tipping point was reached
last month in Missoula County, Montana.
A kid by the name of Touray Cornell faced a
felony charge: possession of an illegal
substance punishable by serious prison time.
The substance: marijuana, found by a police
raid on his home. The amount: 1/16th of an
ounce.
One-sixteenth of an ounce equals less than
two grams. Too little to roll in a cigarette
paper. You could be carrying 1/16th of an
ounce of pot around in your pant cuff right
now and not even know it. But Touray Cornell
was charged and he was going down, just as
soon as Dusty Deschamps, District Judge for
Missoula County could select a jury.
Er…small problem. When each prospective
juror learned what the case was about and how
much ‘drug’ was involved, they refused to
serve. Juror after juror told the judge they
would refuse to convict anyone over such a
miniscule amount of pot. Twenty-seven
prospective jurors were polled; twenty-two
of them said that not only would they not
convict, but the whole farce was “a waste
of taxpayer money”. “It’s a mutiny,” wailed
the District Attorney.
High time too. The war on marijuana has
been going on for 100 years, give or take. It is
impossible to calculate the Himalayas of
money, man hours and human grief it’s cost,
but the price tag is surely in the hundreds of
billions of dollars; the lives blighted too
numerous to comprehend.
And the result? When I was a youth you
pretty much had to be on a first-name basis
with a jazz musician if you wanted to score
some pot. Nowadays? Just hang out around
any schoolyard or shopping mall and look
interested. The Grade 8 connection will find
you.
Historians in the future will shake their
heads to learn there was a time when people
could spend years behind bars for possession
of a barnyard weed. Get caught with a baggie
in your backpack in jurisdictions like Texas
and life as you know it is over, but even in BC,
Bud-happy Canada, you pay a heavy price.
There are three people in my life who have
criminal records and hence cannot cross the
U.S./Canada border. Ever. Their offence?
They were caught – three or four decades
ago – with a joint in their pocket or a couple of
roaches in the car ashtray.
Well, they could get across if they were
willing to pay a $5,000 bribe to the U.S.
government to look the other way, but that’s
another shakedown story.
Most of the blame for Canadian hysteria
over marijuana can be laid at the feet of a
single Albertan, Ms. Emily F. Murphy of
Edmonton. Ms. Murphy, a juvenile court judge
back in the 1920s wrote under the pen name
“Janey Canuck” for Maclean’s.
And she spewed some truly astounding crap.
She wrote – and Maclean’s published – that all
marijuana users were “non-white and non-
Christian, wanting only to seduce white
women”.
“Behind these dregs of humanity,” she
wrote, “is an international conspiracy of
yellow and black drug pushers whose ultimate
goal is the domination of the bright-browed
races of the world.”
One ‘fix’ of the demon weed, Ms. Murphy
assured her readers, “has the effect of driving
(smokers) completely insane. The addicts lose
all sense of moral responsibility and are
immune to pain…become raving maniacs,
liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence
using the most savage cruelty.”
Murphy’s Palinesque ravings turned into a
best-selling book and – incredibly –
influenced Canadian law. Marijuana was
declared illegal; its possession punishable by
jail time. “A decision was made without any
scientific basis, nor even any real sense of
urgency, placing cannabis on the same basis as
the opiate narcotics, and it has remained so to
this day,” so said Justice Gerald LeDain in his
Royal Commission of 1972.
That’s nearly 40 years ago. Canadians can
still get a record for pot possession.
I wonder if we’ll ever become as brave as
those jurors in Missoula County.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Legalize Pot? Weed be better off
As rural populations continue to
dwindle, schools continue to close and
hospitals continue to lose beds, more
and more of an emphasis is being put on
attracting new residents to Huron County.
So when I moved here almost five years ago,
little did I know that there were groups of
people brooding over my very existence.
Not the existence of Shawn Loughlin of
course, but of my kind: The dreaded renter.
A recent rezoning application in Brussels has
brought to light some of the prejudice and
discrimination that is present when discussing
those of us who rent property.
Of course, you can’t blame people in some
respects. Right or not, the speculative monster
of “property value” has established that a home
situated near a rental property is worth less
than homeowners situated within other
homeowners.
But when reading several letters of
opposition to the proposed fourplex, the issue
goes much deeper than property value and
those of us who rent should be insulted.
“Low rental income people, on the most part,
do not have any respect for other people’s
property or vehicle,” one letter read. “I have
had to contact the police on occasion due to
some incidents from these neighbours that
show no respect.”
Another letter states that if Huron East
Council were to approve construction of this
fourplex, that the municipality should consider
buying out the neighbours’ homes because they
would become impossible to sell.
Comments like these strike at the very heart
of a person who, for one reason or another, is
not currently in a position to buy a house.
One letter of objection from a local
development company, received before the
aforementioned two, had more reasonable
concerns regarding the homes visually fitting
in with the personality of the neighbourhood,
concerns that have since been addressed. The
company is also working on homes in the
immediate area.
These are legitimate concerns for the good of
the Brussels community as well as a
company’s investment. The others, however,
can’t help but come across as the words of
over-righteous gatekeepers protecting the
people of Brussels from evil renters out to
destroy everything homeowners hold dear.
Having respect for your fellow man and his
property is not tied to the deed on a home and
if police just responded to rented homes, they’d
have a lot more time on their hands.
I’m happy to say that I have had limited
personal experience with such prejudice, but
perhaps now that I’ve told everyone that Jess
and I have yet to buy a home, they’ll send their
kids to a friend’s house and hide their valuables
when I come over for an interview.
Perhaps it’s because I never looked at life
that way. Living with my parents in a home we
owned, I never looked at friends who rented as
leeches sucking the blood of the community.
We really were impervious to class.
One of my best friends when I was young
lived in a foster home. He wore an extension
cord as a belt. He was a great person, who was
conscientious and caring and I loved hanging
out with him.
Perhaps when looking at the world in more
than dollars and cents, a person’s value might
be allowed to shine through, regardless of a
class stigma. Because if I was starting my own
community, I’d fill it with a dozen versions of
my childhood friend before someone who
would pass such judgement before even
meeting his new neighbour.
A good neighbour
Nearly one year ago from the date this
newspaper hits the stand I began my
time as a reporter at The Citizen.
The second placement in my chosen career,
my time here has been unique and educational.
When I first walked into the office during
the latter part of the last week of February, I
was handed several stories for the annual
agricultural section of the newspaper and tried
to hit the ground running as best I can.
I’m not, or wasn’t, a very rurally-versed
individual.
Despite members of my family growing up
on farms or being farmers, I had never really
been involved with the industry beyond my
brief rural-centred interactions with Ashfield-
Colborne-Wawanosh Township Council.
So to say that it was new ground is an
understatement.
When I was young I went to school with the
children of farmers, people actually used their
tractors and combines to come to school
dances, and snowmobiles were fairly
commonplace at my high school, but I
managed to avoid much interaction with the
rural lifestyle.
This wasn’t because I didn’t like it, or
thought less of it, it just didn’t have a lot of
bearing on what I believed my future would be
(which was not reporting, I didn’t really come
to that decision until Grade 12).
I had always thought I would end up
programming computers, or writing technical
documentation. Unfortunately for those
desires, math was just way too boring and
writing way too exciting for me to follow that
path.
Back to the topic though, agriculture was
not second nature to me, as a matter of fact,
many of the things I’ve since learned are
commonplace were completely foreign to me.
But I’m not one to back away from
interesting stories, which is why I love my job.
I originally became interested in journalism
due to a movie I saw in Grade 12; The Killing
Fields. The idea of reporting on foreign
activities and bringing them back to Huron
County really appealed to me.
Then I started writing for my university’s
newspaper.
I learned that the best thing about being a
journalist is all that you learn.
Then it was unique sporting opportunities
and events, now it’s agriculture, green energy,
municipal practices and fire coverage.
Over the past year I’ve learned more about
agriculture, insurance, emergency services and
taxes than I ever anticipated knowing.
I have learned about property assessments
and the importance of fire hydrant placement
when getting insurance.
Now, at the time, these were simply
interesting facts that I tucked into the back of
my mind, but recently, my significant other
and I began looking at moving to Blyth.
Between everything I had recently learned,
and all the research I’ve done for stories, I was
able to figure that the first insurance company
that I received a quote from for a new home
was way over what it should have been. I have
since found a much better company.
Such is the life of a reporter, and such has
been the last year.
We know things at great depths when
necessary, but start by knowing a broad
overview of many things.
Unlike many careers where you need to be
an expert in a field, journalists need to be
willing and able to learn, and I want to thank
all of The Citizen’s readers and all of the
people I’ve worked with for what I’ve learned.
Looking back at when I walked into this
office in late February last year, I realize that I
knew nothing (or next to nothing) about
milking sheep, oil-burning tractors, restoring
old barns, careers throughout retirement, the
Accommodation Review process undertaken
by the school board, vaccinated beef sales, tae
kwon do or wind turbines.
I had (much to my embarrassment) very
little knowledge of the Emergency Services
Training Centre despite having refereed soccer
nearby for years, I hadn’t come across Blyth’s
Happy Baker Erin Bolger and my knowledge
of the annual Thresher’s reunion was lacking
to say the least.
Heck, my knowledge of even the roads
throughout North Huron, Central Huron,
Huron East, Morris-Turnberry and ACW was
pretty much limited to the major traffic routes.
That has changed though. In the last year
I’ve learned the quickest way to get places,
I’ve learned to rely more and more on my
experience and the directions provided to me
and less and less on my GPS, and all of it is
thanks to the amazing stories I get to tell, the
great places I get to visit, and the people I
work with every day, both those who are part
of The Citizen and those I talk to for stories
and photos.
And all of these opportunities are because
local newspapers exist and give reporters like
me the opportunity to learn about new things
every day.
Next week I’ll be studying agricultural
predation, solar panels and the challenges
faced by young farmers, and the week after
that, who knows?
The only thing that’s guaranteed is I will
learn something new every week, and I
wouldn’t have that any other way.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
A year in the life of a reporter
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den