Last week on my television show, we interviewed Jodie Emery, a woman known only because her husband Marc is in prison in the United States and enjoys the sobriquet Prince of Pot.
She’s been on the show twice before, is a little lightweight and, typical of many single-issue extremists, indulges in the odd conspiracy theory.
This time I challenged her a little on drug legalization, and her answers were thin and predictable.
Not that I am especially opposed to looser drug laws and I really couldn’t care less about personal cannabis one way or the other.
It’s the plight of the privileged, a bourgeois conceit, a perfect example of western narcissism and self-obsession.
But here is where it got interesting. Even before the interview aired, after Emery tweeted about her rather gentle experience, I began to receive tweets and e-mails.
More than 500 of them in the end. I was called “Jew slime,” “a fag,” told that I “should get cancer,” called every abusive name you can imagine, often with appallingly bad spelling!
Yes, we have the proof.
I care even less about this than about cannabis use, but it does say an enormous amount about the dysfunction and fanaticism of the legalization campaign.
Frankly, I can understand anger from Muslims, Palestinians or gay people when I criticize Islam, defend Israel or oppose same-sex marriage. These are vital issues and emotions run high.
But smoking a joint? And it’s not even about that, in fact.
Nobody is going to be arrested for using cannabis at home, those dreadfully dull mass smoke-ins that seem to occur all the time prove you can be a bore publicly as well. I know cops who use the stuff, but I don’t know cops who arrest people for personal use.
The propaganda campaign that a plethora of charges are successfully filed because of ordinary people having tiny amounts of cannabis on them is mere fantasy.
This is not an ideology or a cause but a habit and an addiction. Like people campaigning for the right to masturbate. We don’t care guys, we just don’t care. Hunger matters, injustice matters, war matters, but this and you don’t. Yet we have the scenario of inverse significance. Activists for African poverty relief, for example — who have every right to be mad — tend to be balanced and polite. Yet activists for irresponsible drug-use — who have no right to be mad at all — are insulting fanatics.
Emery’s husband Marc, of course, in 2005 called former Liberal justice minister, Irwin Cotler, “a Nazi Jew or Jewish Nazi,” so I suppose he was either shaped by or shaping his people. Now this white, wealthy, self-promoter thinks he’s a martyr. Sorry guy, but there are thousands of poor people in American prisons who genuinely deserve help.
Imploding libertarian theories of wanting to legalize drugs so users have to buy them from the state and not the free market; students who have never contributed a cent to society screaming that they demand the right to hallucinate in the street; lies about the potential dangers of long-term cannabis use; utter myopia about the realities of criminal behaviour and so on and so on.
Grow up or shut up.
Michael is a weekly columnist with the Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg Sun newspapers, and in more than a dozen other daily and weekly newspapers across Canada. He is also a columnist for The Catholic Register, Catholic Insight, Catholic World Report, The Landowner, and The Interim. He also appears each Wednesday on Newstalk 1010 radio, and is a regular guest on networks as diverse as Russia Today and TVOntario.
He is the best-selling author of fourteen books, including biographies of G.K. Chesterton, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. He has contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography and several other anthologies. He is published in many countries and in more than a dozen languages. His last two books were on the best-seller list for more than ten weeks.
He has received several honorary doctorates and awards for his writing and broadcasting. In 2005 he won The Ed Murrow Award for Radio Broadcasting, in 2006 The RTNDA Radio Broadcasting Award, in 2007 the Communicator Award in Hollywood and in 2008 the Omni Award for his television show. In 2012 The Catholic Civil Rights League gave Coren the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Catholic Excellence in Public Life, and in the same year he was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for services to media. Michael Coren is a frequent speaker on a number of issues. Please visit the Public Speaking page for more details.
- Police politicization: Law breakers ignored while law-abiding protesters treated like criminals - Sunday January 13, 2013 at 1:21 pm
- Ideological narcissism: Chief’s hunger strike tough to swallow - Monday January 7, 2013 at 9:15 am
- Fashion over debate: Sonny days ahead if Justin Trudeau gets Liberal leadership nod - Thursday January 3, 2013 at 1:29 pm
