I don’t know where you stand on the issue marijuana use, and frankly I’m not all that interested. It has been my experience as a professional entertainer that a room full of stoners is infinitely preferable to a room full of drunks as an audience. There won’t be any fights, the crowd will get into the music and food sales will likely go through the roof.

I’m talking only about marijuana now, not any of the other ‘recreational’ drugs in common use, many of which have decidedly unpleasant side effects for both the users and the people with whom they interact.

Our new police chief, Brad Duncan, wants to see drug paraphernalia taken off the shelves of London stores. Ward 4 councillor Steve Orser agrees, seeing as how cocaine use is a very real problem in his ward, and he has joined Chief Duncan in pushing council to take a stand on the issue, even though as a municipal body they have no control over the criminal code. Duncan and Orser reason that if the drugs are illegal, the gear used to consume them should be, too. Makes sense to me, but apparently the law doesn’t agree.

Time for a change, then. If this equipment has but one use, facilitating the use of illegal drugs, then our lawmakers need to address the problem and draft new legislation to ban it. I can’t see how it’s any more complicated than that. And we shouldn’t have to wait years for that to happen (though we probably will).

Oh, and please spare me the crackpot lecture about “rights”, and how such a ban will restrict them. My right to the peaceful enjoyment of my home, my neighbourhood and my city is infringed every time some crack-head commits a robbery, an assault, or worse and I think that is a much more important right than one that guarantees you can buy drug paraphernalia even though you can’t legally buy the drugs to go with them.

Banning the pipes won’t stop cocaine use, but it will at least make a statement that we are serious about deploring its use. Council should support Chief Duncan and councillor Orser and send that message on to Ottawa, the only place the needed changes can be made.