This is an email I sent to the Ontario Safety League, I'm not sure who they are but they do sound like they are trying to speak for me. Right now they are trying to get signatures to stop convenience stores selling bongs, pipes, etc. I just do not see the evil in these stores, and I am just bothered by a group of people imposing their will on free business owners. More so I'm bothered by how backwards this petition feels, not like a step in the right direction, not even a more middle-of-the-road Canadian approach like hiding these items out of sight. So I couldn't help but respond, so here it is :

In this age, when I really have hope that the attitude towards drugs can change in a way that really makes our society more peaceful, caring, and helpful, I'm very disappointing to see effort being focused in this fruitless direction.

Shouldn't there be something said to the fact that cannabis is a legal substance in Canada, thousands of patients use medical cannabis legally and smoke bongs, pipes, use vaporizers, papers etc. they purchase those items legally, from stores like you mention. Many patients don't live in the city, do not have access to "head shops" that specialize in selling such things (along with tobacco, shes-ha, and other legal things that people actually DO use theses items before, regardless of you saying that nobody does).

That said do you include papers in your campaign? There are still many people who use them to roll tobacco cigarettes, there are many people who smoke tobacco from Sherlock style wooden pipes (ok not many, but classy people do). Never mind that, stores commonly sell nicotine-free e-cigs which are actually nice little vaporizers. Can you guess whetherthose maybe modified to vaporize anything else? They are legal. While you are at it, you had better go ahead and send a letter to Walmart and make sure they stop selling those coffee grinders, do they really think so many 16 year old kids are grinding their own coffee?

None of these things should be sold to anyone underage, but lack of access to  the proper "paraphernalia" has ever really stopped anyone from smoking. Put a stoner in a room with his herb and he will find a way to smoke it.

 

If these things are telling your kids that drugs are ok, how do they respond when they hear of legalization in the news, medicinal use, heavy use in movies and media, etc. Obviously their parents should be guiding them, a kid who has had a real conversation about drugs with their parents doesn't see a pipe and want to smoke. They will know what it is, they will know they want no part in it.Give them some credit, they can actually think.

Really removing bongs, pipes, vaporizers, papers, etc from these stores is not accomplishing anything. By the time your children see a pipe on a convenience store shelf, they have been exposed to drugs by their peers, siblings and a thousand other sources already. As one we need to start thinking rationally about drug use, encourage education, rehabilitation, control, and the elimination of black markets (which you will create if you remove pipes and bongs from all shelves), instead of thinking punishment, bans, incarceration.