Whenever I feel subversive, there is usually protection involved in it, which was the case with my friend’s house where cops watched me walk out of. A few blocks later, the two jumped out of van, calling me ‘mam’, waved me brisk to come over to the curb. He asked me where I had been and I saw no point of lying—he obviously knew. He, being the more traditional, aggressive cop, started huffing about what kind of place it was (a compassionate club) and asked me to pull out my pockets. I wasn’t sure what my rights were, but I wanted to exude calmness, justice, and kept my eyes locked onto his. I felt protected, so when he asked if they were ‘weed’ cookies I had pulled out of my pocket, I blankly said no. He huffed and puffed them back at me because he knew and I knew that testing the amount of THC in cookies just isn’t worth the bother. I thought to myself, okay then, this proves that cookies are decriminalization in process. Awhile back the BC Supreme Court ruled in a cookie case that unless the exact amount of THC could be determined in each cookie, (which it can’t) then don’t bring them to court.
So, let’s keep pushing the vision forward with action towards full decriminalization.
After my petite subversive encounter on the street with the police, I walked away trying to figure out how I felt about it. The outcome was good enough, but I wasn’t sure if it would have been better to ask if I was under arrest before emptying my pockets. It was like after doing a talk, or presentation, and you think, I should have said this. I could have emphasized this more…They were trying to harm a friend and they had done enough harm to this family already. I had to resist saying, ‘don’t you have more important things to do?’ Middle age does have a softening affect, but overall, I thought the encounter went okay, and that my friend would not be harmed.
Because they had made me empty my pockets and went through my bag, I decided it was only fair that they hear a little lecture on cannabis and the environment. Not really listening, he responded, ‘yeah, I know, it’s only weed, right?’ That’s right, so why then are we engaged in this nonsense? He sneered and guffawed that the place called itself a church, and I said, ‘well, I don’t do church, but I can certainly see why cannabis is considered a sacrament.’ He cop-postured, cop-sneered and huffed some more, ‘yeah right’. What is about huffing? Maybe, it’s just me, but thug behavior always feels a little too familiar. Thugs, of course, do often become criminals, but some become teachers, cops, or go on the corporate track, wherever, they are prolific in our society, and, sadly for the rest of us, they have yet to discover the benefits of cannabis and doing some inner work.
But, for the rest of us, it is time to say we are coming up with the medical cannabis plan since the government has failed so miserably in doing so. We also need a campaign, ‘Come Out Of The Cannabis Closet Canada!’ It is part of what needs being done to rally people from their slumber of how they have been duped about this remarkable plant, and how stigma continues to knock us out at the knees for doing the right thing, facing the fear, and making things better for everyone.
We have to turn this ship of foolishness on cannabis around for the sake our environment, economy and our intelligence. It’s not just about morality, it is about the integrity of our intelligence. Such a plan would benefit urban centres as well as rural. Reserves too could benefit tremendously for economic development and medicine for harm reduction, HIV and Hep C. Why shouldn’t a plan from the people develop the criteria for growing in rural and distributing in urban? Our plan could be developed by diverse cannabis stakeholders across the spectrum, across the country, a plan by the people, for the people and the planet. We have to insist on such a plan being part of the political platform in the next Federal election, right around the corner, so please send a message to the leaders from my website to ensure they don’t ignore us—www.thehempfactory.com.
We will be instrumental in implementing such a plan with all levels of government because the world does look to Canada for moral guidance. We will want to share this model with others in the world because that is what cannabis is all about. Following this is a research proposal that could be a guiding blue print for building a community based cannabis industry. It is something to begin conversations around. What should growing and distributing look like from a harm reduction and anti-poverty perspective? Here is a good question to begin with. What question would you start with?
It was synchronistic that my walk landed me at the corner of Sherbourne and Wellesley, like I was pulled by some karmic magnetic subversive energy force. I leaned against the old fence kept from the original building in 1911, and pondered on the lovely long term care building before me and the soon to be completed housing for HIV+ and seniors. It all looks good, but there was a time when it seemed unlikely that this good outcome would be. The embattled board egos post traumatic hospital closure were an unruly group to be reckoned with. They fired me after 6 years of exemplary service, with a few subversions, but they never found out about them till now. My duties for about two years were overseeing the issues of the emptying hospital. I was also doing communications, but the CEO had a bent towards outsourcing, so when the building issues were complete, they figured they would up the outsourcing ante, because it was more important they develop their urban health muscle and be seen as a leader in policy in urban health, and hire an urban health researcher. The budget wouldn’t allow for two, just more outsourcing.
Board members were essentially good people vying for power, but they were also legally over talked, and sometimes, well sometimes as the minute taker, as I was, I thought, they just like the sounds of their own voices. It was like being in a bottomless pit of potential liability issues. Sometimes incredible wrangling and haggling had to be done for the smallest initiative in the community. That part of the experience makes me look at this corner and say, yes, it’s amazing this final outcome.
The corner of Sherbourne and Wellesley is a good reflecting point for activists of all stripes and we should all be united. We need to remind ourselves how others have seen persistence pay off, such as one who I will call ‘crafty’ because he persisted in saying, ‘and the disabled’ after each time the Chair said he wanted to build housing for the frail elderly. Eventually the Chair came to say he wanted to build housing for the frail elderly and the disabled. Then crafty would get his ducks lined up and we engaged in a few secret meetings and sneaking out of plans, etc. sweet subversive ness. If the board started leaning towards the fear of no profit, which they often did, then crafty would hit with perfect timing on the importance of doing this for a community that fought hard, the HIV/AIDS community, to keep the hospital open. It worked. Fag wiles, persistence and craft paid off. I’ve come to discover, it always will.
The Health Minister George Smitherman once called this corner ‘sacred ground’ and I agree, but to me, it’s sacred because Sherbourne St. is a main artery of immigration. At this corner diversity is gold and it’s sacred ground because of its energy of subversive ness. It was the Minister who first hired me at the Wellesley to work on the ‘Staying Alive Campaign’ back in 96. I admit to a secret I harboured when I first got involved and that was the building was so ugly, another bad block design from one of those decades (50’s, 60’s or 70’s) when they were bent on killing imagination in architecture. As someone who avoids the medical model, I was never a fan of hospitals, and I figured, this ‘soviet block’, as some neighbours referred to it, would not be so sadly missed. But then I soon learned that the hospital was more than bricks and mortar, and that it was an excellent model as a community hospital, which was a rarity then. Plus, when you become aware of the politics to kill it because it was the hospital of choice for dying fags, struggling new immigrants, and the drug addled, one such as my self could not resist pricking myself into fighting. In fact, I would not have wanted to be elsewhere at the time. Besides I got to sideline as crafty honed his fag wiles.
It is hard, once being dumped by work, not to feel resentment, but there is no point in feeling it for long. I needed to get where I am now and I can speak about displacement from the personal, which is why an employment initiative is very important to me. Strangely, I became quite attached to those ugly buildings. I roamed those empty halls and felt different kinds of energy. Indeed, it is heavier in certain locations: OR, morgue, animal labs, psyche ward. It was shocking to see how ugly the morgue was and I could practically hear some gay men screaming in my ear, ‘you tell them how ugly this room is—we didn’t just die to make death pretty, though it sure needed doing so, especially this room!’ Oh yes indeed, there were Wellesley ghosts and I became friends with them. They were my sounding board and they had the subversive memes still bristling while I walked those hallways.
The strange thing about empty buildings is that they seem to die as though they too need oxygen from people to stay vital. The buildings inhabited the grief of the people who had been there, and who had a hard time leaving, because for many it was a first good job they got in Canada when they made their way up that Sherbourne St. artery. They were proud to work there. I had not seen that before. Seeing people cry over losing their jobs is tough, but the Harris government seared its legacy ensuring that for the people where things were already tough, things were going to be tougher.
In the empty Wellesley things began to fall apart quickly like fire systems and water systems, as though the infrastructure knew it is doomed. About six months before the demolition crew came in, I started giving equipment away to agencies local and ones I did not know of, but they said they wanted radiation equipment to send to Kenya and other parts of Africa. Of course I had to facilitate, but without the knowledge of anyone because the board would have carried on and on about liability, liability, and good intentions would have ended up demolished. I just decided the right thing was to try and make it happen unknowingly.
The final group to benefit from this pillage was an animal protection group who wanted the scale in the morgue for injured moose and a whole lot of sinks and tables from the OR. They brought a tractor trailer and slew of a crew for dismantling quickly as I told them it had to be done in a day. I gulped when I saw the tractor trailer, especially since the board was having a meeting up the street, (actually deciding my job fate) but they were calling me concerned because OCAP was threatening a protest. I must admit, I was quite stressed as I had not even confided in crafty whom I trusted. He and I had been subversive before, but this was bigger and I knew if I got caught, I would be done for, but I was anyways without my sin being known. In a way my firing was anti-climatic.
I had to cut the final group’s pillage short and they were unhappy, but because their crew was inexperienced, they caused a flood. When the fire department sirens were in ear shot, I could hear the ghost of my fire chief father laughing at me, but I also knew, it would all work out for the best. I sure could have benefited from a cannabis cookie then, but all I could do was pace the halls and summon my queer ghostly friends one more time. They said to me, ‘what will be done, will be done.’ There is a wisdom that comes with death.
Sweet Subversive ness –I could have only committed such acts because the groundwork was already laid with subversive memes replicating and being absorbed by me roaming and safeguarding those doomed hallways and elevators. Like finds like—it’s how energy works and we can make it work for us to achieve decriminalization and a much greener world to reverse the harm that has been done economically and ecologically.
Sometimes when you are traversing the reverse path of your own golden child, you have to be open to the darkness in a new way and cannabis helps. Anyone out there doing cannabis-therapy? You should be. What I am writing about is recovery from a cannabis perspective. We know how cannabis can facilitate awareness, in addition to providing other kinds of therapy. We are at the beginning of the dawn of discovering all the potential benefits of cannabis, and yet She has been with us since the beginning and has always played a key role. Before She was the victim of Corporate America, She was the victim of the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, although references to her healing abilities are linked to Jesus and Joan D’Arc, and many sages and saints of other religions.
It has been coined (Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Psychiatry) that cannabis, once redeemed and justly restored to the pharmacopoeia, will be the ‘penicillin’ of this century. I believe it will actually be so much more. I believe cannabis will be considered one of the key saviours of our environment and linked to ending poverty. It certainly could end malnutrition with a concerted short term global plan. Let’s visualize it happening, a perfect omega plant protein for all little ones who immediately require it. No one should ever be undignified by hunger—this should be a crime of every state and every state should be accountable if one state is found hungering. Providing food, economics, medicine, restoring the earth, cleaning the air, how much more can you ask of a plant? If you can’t see divinity in this like the cop who sneered, ‘ya right, a sacrament,’ then you require a fundamental shift in your perspective. See how the black market and your own self regulation have fogged up you.
I understand why some like to play cops and robbers, but let’s invent a new game where the cops actually have to go to social work school and be educated in sustainability and harm reduction. Hey, they can keep the uniforms as they seem to be highly regarded in the fetish world.
I am a rebel with a good green attitude, which means foremost, no violence, no matter, and reducing the harm that has been caused in this world. Legacies last long unfortunately, but awareness is brewing, bristling, indeed, you can feel it in the wind on a cold March day when you are thinking enough of winter already. There is a way to turn the black market green and shift the corporatist paradigm with its slavish mantra that the market takes care of things—things not people, except those at the top. People are waking up to the lies, finally, so maybe there is something to be grateful to George Bush for? He illustrated deftly, with spin skills ever so sharp, how easy it is for colonialists to sell lies if the oilgarchy is in need of a cash crop fix for its SUV laden junkie billionaires.
What will it take to turn the black market green? Is there resistance from police and legal because they also feed off of it? Why did a politician patronize me with a lecture on the yin and yang of American/Canadian trade and how we can’t hold up borders? I don’t want to hold up any business at the border, but I sure as god damn hell don’t want their US guns coming into my country daily, as a 16 year old suburban Montreal told me, they come to his neighbourhood bi-weekly in a white van. ‘They have friends at the border,’ he tells me. I think they must because we have a problem in our country with guns. So, let’s hire more people at the border to stop it, and they can look for cannabis too. You can bet our Southern friends will be coming up here in droves for some cannabis and same sex fun and entertainment. Mayor Miller—I’d say we could solve those financial city woes of yours with a cannabis plan. It really does fit in with a green plan, in fact, we should be growing hemp and cannabis on rooftops, because fewer plants gobble up emissions better. Finally, with cannabis/hemp we could become the truly unique International Green City we are destined to be. If you need any facilitation with this vision, a little cannabis and good conversation with like minded people is all it takes. (T: 416-461-6448) Put it out there to end your own stigma, to be a leader in stepping out of the black market toward a green economy of fairness. Fear is our worst enemy. Let’s end it.
It is fitting I should end at the beginning of where I began at the corner of Wellesley and Sherbourne. Last night after beginning this article I ran into another one of my favourite characters on the Wellesley Board on the Bloor viaduct. She wears clothes that create cape effects around her, so with a bit of wind, night time, on the Bloor viaduct, she flowed into my pathway like an angel in the darkness. I took it as a sign of permission to write what I have written. When I surrendered my subversive ness in the flooding of the Wellesley Hospital hallways (I try to think of it as a baptism) I felt like I had achieved disrespect from a few directions, but I still thought it was the right thing to do.
These agencies never knew that they were stealing. So, it’s not really stealing if people think it is being given, right? I choose to do it that way, underhandedly, because I knew there was no other way to make it happen. It all worked out the way it was intended. We need to intend a vision for decriminalization. We need to take action, come up with creative solutions, and make our politicians listen. We need to be more engaged in this process, see our selves as sustainable change agents.
Crafty showed that persistence pays off and its remarkable how little is remembered of the embattling board egos vying for attention and power-seeking ahead of doing what was best. But, what was best was what was finally achieved, so its potential was always there. The icing on the cake for me is that cannabis be grown on the rooftops there for a compassion club at lower level retail, where HIV+ people can work in exchange for cannabis or cash. Where there is flexibility. The cannabis on the rooftops will also gobble up emissions Mayor Miller. I think it is a splendid pilot project for such a befitting great Canadian corner—there is no other like it in Canada. It is a goldmine of diversity and the best of who we can be.
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