Cannabis is now legal in Canada, but not everyone is interested in lighting up.
Dr. Perry Kendall is open-minded about marijuana use, but said he has no immediate plans to rush out and buy it.
“I’m interested in the medical aspect of cannabis for elderly people,” said Kendall, a retired provincial health officer. “I’d want to wait for a little bit more medical information on it before tackling a particular issue like arthritis.
“Would I take it recreationally? I grew up in the ’60s, so I have used it obviously in the past,” he said. “Am I interested in using it? I don’t know. I’d have to think about it. It’s not something I’ve been holding my breath to do.”
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Retired senator Pat Carney is happy with her favourite drug of choice: Scotch.
“I tried marijuana a couple of times when I was young and foolish, but it didn’t turn me on,” she said.
As a reformed smoker, Carney is concerned about second-hand smoke from both cigarettes and pot irritating her tobacco-stained lungs.
“I’m not going to be doing it. There will be no smoking of any kind in my house,” she said.
“I’m not interested in trying marijuana, but I am worried about the atmosphere around us. In my condo building, what do I do if I smell weed? Go knocking on doors and hitting people over the head?”
The retired senator had enough problems trying to quit smoking when the Parliament buildings were declared a non-smoking area.
“Under the stress of some impending bill, I borrowed a cigarette from Sen. Ray Perrault and I lit my wastepaper basket on fire,” Carney said.
“It was February. As I stared at the flames in my wastepaper basket, I thought of 2,000 parliamentary employees all huddled in the snow and the newspaper headlines — Senator Pat Burns Down the Parliament Buildings for the Second Time.” (The old Centre Block burned to the ground on Feb. 3, 1916. Seven people died.)
Carney poured her water jug onto the fire and the flames were extinguished. “I never, ever, ever smoked another cigarette.”
Pat Convey, the Mountie in charge of the Vancouver Island drug section from 1990 to 2001 and an inspector with Organized Crime Unit until 2006, has no interest in lighting up.
“Christ, I worked for many years undercover and I really have no desire,” Convey said.
“When you’ve been around it for many, many years on one side, I’ve got no interest in seeing how it feels, quite frankly, because I’ve a pretty good idea how that goes down. And I think if [Prime Minister] Trudeau thinks he can keep organized crime out of it, he’s whistling Dixie.”
Convey finds it ironic that former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino and “some of the major bigwigs in the RCMP” — like ex-deputy commissioner Raf Souccar — are now working for the marijuana industry.
“I find it’s, quite frankly, a little hypocritical. And the guys that are in it are some of the echelon players. They weren’t in the mud and the blood and the beer. They were in the situation where they were overseeing some of the investigations,” he said.
“I guess I don’t begrudge them or anything, but I am surprised that some of them are jumping in. If they can see a buck and the buck means that much to them, have at ’er. But I’m not going to rush out there tomorrow and get involved in that side of the marijuana trade, I can tell you that.”
Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has never been tempted to smoke pot.
“The fact that it’s now legal — it’s not something I’m interested in,” she said. “Without hesitation, I would accept a doctor’s prescription for cannabinoid pain relief or something medicinal. I’m just not interested in smoking things.”
May describes herself as the opposite of a party animal.
“My parents never set me a curfew because I was home at night doing my homework,” she said. “I’m really boring … I have lots of friend who have used pot over the years, in their younger years, and some are doing it now and it’s all fine. I’m not judging.”
The Green Party was the first to favour legalization, May noted.
“But there’s no particular reason for a healthy person to pick up a new recreational drug habit or even to try it out for fun,” she said. “I’m kind of happy with the life I’ve got.”
