IT’S THE HYPOCRISY OF IT ALL

It’s interesting to hear Justin Trudeau admit to using pot. This will date me, but it reminds me a bit of when Liberace was outed by AIDS back in the 1980s. Was anyone on earth really surprised that Liberace was gay? Surely we’d have all been amazed if somehow it had been confirmed that he wasn’t. What was revealed by Liberace’s “outing” was that few people really cared. Liberace became the highest paid entertainer in the world by pretending to be a gay pianist. We were no more surprised to discover that he actually was gay than we would have been to discover that he could actually play the piano.

Justin Trudeau is 42 years old. That alone makes it unlikely that he’s never smoked pot. He’s also the son of parents who smoked pot, and is a supporter of the legalization of marijuana. It’s a bit surprising to hear that he’s only smoked it a few times, but then I have to admit I only smoked it once. He doesn’t drink coffee, while I drink four to six cups a day. Tom Mulcair has smoked it, but won’t say how much or when. Stephen Harper hasn’t, but then he hastens to add that this is because of his asthma. See what I mean. It all becomes a bit silly.

What is not silly is a political system that continues to criminalize behaviour that so many politicians, with no apparent shame, admit to having participated in. It’s the hypocrisy of it all that does the real damage. So, if all the pot smokers would please stand up and vote accordingly, perhaps we could move on to some important things.

PS: The scandal in the Liberace story was never that he was gay, but that he so fiercely denied it during his lifetime, suing for millions of dollars and winning a palimony battle he probably should have lost. – Oh, what a tangled web we weave...