Life in Toronto

So apparently cannabis will be legal here tomorrow — I only ever tried it once, a couple of years ago, when I was at a party and thought “I’m forty-two, what’s the worst that can happen?” Turns out it just made me cough. Disappointing, really; the warnings they gave us in high-school health class really exaggerated the appeal. They also lied about how much my peers would pressure me to try it, which is why I never did until I was forty-two — I was never offered any in school, and only once at university.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Police Board has set their policy regarding use by off-duty officers as “not within twenty-eight day’s of reporting for duty, which pretty much means they can’t get high at all unless they’ve just begun a month-long vacation. The union is not pleased with this, and I have to admit it seems a bit extreme, considering they can drink on the weekends. I don’t know whether the two stoned cops, earlier this year, who called for backup because they were tripping so hard convinced the Board that Toronto cops can’t be trusted to know their limits, or whether this is some sort of “it’s legal but we still disapprove” position.

I wonder if the Fire Department’s new campaign against tossing lit cigarettes is because they think the legalization will lead to more smoking. I’ve seen two posters in this campaign.  One very deliberately breaks the usual ad-design rule against printing the word FLICK in all-caps; that’s the light-hearted one. The other is not flicking around.