Cross-border co-operation need not go to pot

commentary
By GORDON GIBSON
Globe and Mail, Canada
August 4, 2005

excerpt:

Canada has always been a more live-and-let-live society -- the same-sex legislation is the latest example. On marijuana, almost 35 years ago, the Le Dain Commission called for decriminalization. I worked for prime minister Pierre Trudeau then. The report was released as we were touring a bull-semen facility in Guelph, Ont. (I am not making this up.) The press cared not at all about productive agriculture and totally about weed. At an end-of-tour press conference, the prime minister was asked if he favoured decriminalization. We were in the semen facility's boardroom and it had a blackboard with a permanent picture of Elsie the cow painted on, perhaps in recognition of the customer base. Mr. Trudeau was very quick. Saying not a word, he went to the blackboard, took the chalk and drew a cartoonist's balloon out of the cow's mouth. Inside he slowly wrote, "I like grass!" The room dissolved in laughter.