With people smoking pot outdoors in Vancouver with impunity, extraditing Marc Emery to the US on trumped up drug charges is a joke.
EYE WEEKLY's Decade in Review: Chris Bilton on drugs, gay marriage and prostitution
Features
The rights side of history
From drugs to gay marriage to prostitution, the 2000s marked a collective loosening of the collar
BY Chris Bilton December 22, 2009 21:12
Follow @EYEWEEKLY on Twitter.
Hands up everyone who spent New Year’s Eve of Y2K: a) high out of their minds; b) experimenting with same sexuality; c) partying with prostitutes; or d) all of the above. Yup, that’s what I thought. Some would blame these actions on your basic NYE debauchery or end-of-the-world fear mongering. On the other hand, lots of folks would chastise this kind of behaviour as being immoral, unholy or simply illegal. Despite such protestations, a great many of us would be more inclined to defend their drug use or sexual preference with something along the lines of: actually, this is who I am, so deal with it.
After all, the turn of the century also marked the end of one of the most self-obsessed, pop-culture-inflected, sociological Petri dishes of a decade since the 1960s. So it’s not surprising that Personal Choice would be the prevailing factor for how people — especially those flirting with adulthood — approached things like drug use and sexuality. Contrary to the fears of parents everywhere, this was actually a good thing. In the conflicted decade that followed — where anyone could get rich and yet most of the world still lived in poverty; where we waged war on terror and yet never really knew the enemy; and where an increasing portion of our lives could be accessed on any home computer — egocentricity became an undeniable force for change.
As we, as a society, became more open to the power of personal choice, the rules governing these personal choices became far less appropriate. And while the laws surrounding drugs, same-sex marriage and prostitution are by no means perfect, a great deal of progress was made in the ’00s. Some laws were overturned, some were modified and some are still simply under consideration. But at least there has been a general movement towards de-moralizing the institution of marriage, or certain herbal crops or even the world’s oldest profession. In these three cases, we came a little bit closer to granting more people their basic human rights.
The Chronic 2001
From hippies to High Times magazine to Cheech and Chong to Snoop Dogg, dope smokers have long been a part of pop culture as an overt projection of how common drug use really is. Many of us recognize the hypocrisy that some drugs are perfectly acceptable for mass consumption while others — those "un-taxed drugs", as Bill Hicks would say — remain illegal. Some subvert the laws by treating pot smoking as a better alternative to beer or cigarettes, while others have gone so far as to explore the medical benefits of marijuana.
The latter context served as the basis for the historical day in Canada when we became the first country to adopt regulations for medicinal marijuana use. This meant that people suffering from AIDS or cancer, for example, would be able to have access to government-approved pot. Ironically, these regulations made way for an unexpected shift towards decriminalization when in 2003 a Supreme Court ruling said that allowing access to pot without providing a legal supply is unconstitutional. And for a brief period in Ontario during that year, marijuana was actually decriminalized.
In Kensington Market, Toronto’s counter-culture haven, Abi Roach took advantage of this legal reprieve and opened The Hot Box Café in the back of Roach-O-Rama that boasted a spacious back patio on which any paying customer would be free to smoke whatever pot they brought with them. The Hot Box continued to operate long after the temporary decriminalization ceased, providing a hassle-free place to smoke right up to this day. One thing about public pot smoking remained taboo however, and that was that you still couldn’t buy marijuana.
That all changed with Dominic Cramer, the “Mayor of Yongesterdam.” Cramer — who had been operating a compassion club since 1997 — opened Vapor Central above his Toronto Hemp Company, where for a membership fee, people would be free to smoke as they pleased. He has since expanded his operations to include the Kindred Café, a place that a recent Toronto Life profile touted for its high-powered milkshakes-plus (as Alex and his droogs would say).
While pot is still very much illegal, the public perception of its use has changed so drastically over the past decade that cases like Marc Emery’s extradition to the US or the 2008 raid on Kindred Café seem far more outrageous than a bunch of happy stoners celebrating April 20th with a public toking session.
Do you, Michael, take Michael to be your husband?
The most important human rights case of the decade, however, has to be the long overdue recognition of same-sex marriage. The year 2000 marked the 20th anniversary of Toronto’s pride parade — a celebration that’s become an institution in this town and across the globe, which, at the time, even counted the support of staunch conservatives like former mayor Mel Lastman. While Toronto prides itself on being one of the most inclusive cities in the world, the fact that a specific group of its consenting adult citizens couldn’t be legally recognized life-partners was like a “whites only” sign on the institution of marriage.
Though two same-sex couples were legally married in 2001, it wasn’t until 2003 when a Supreme Court ruling upheld the Charter of Rights’ equality provisions that these marriages would also be registered and given a licence. Michael Stark and Michael Leshner then became the first officially gay-married couple only hours after the court’s ruling was set. Other provinces followed suit, as did the federal government in 2005 when it issued the Civil Marriage Act of Canada. Sadly, the same can’t be said in the hope-filled climate of our neighbours to the south, where appalling legislation like Proposition 8 gets passed even in otherwise progressive left-coast California.
“Punish the products but not the machine”
But the most contentious of these three human-rights struggles is the one that’s been going on since the Code of Hammurabi: prostitution. Ironically, prostitution is also the lone case where the act itself is already legal. But the laws surrounding the sex trade, which effectively prevent any act associated with prostitution — like soliciting in public or operating a brothel — mean that sex workers have to conduct their business without any legal or societal protection whatsoever. Needless to say, this fact is hardly a deterrent.
Even when dire circumstances of this situation become a national tragedy — as in the case of Robert Pickton and the dozens of Vancouver sex workers missing or murdered — there seems to be little opportunity for discussing the rights of prostitutes. Thus it was really only this year, when Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch came before the Supreme Court to argue that Canada’s prostitution laws perpetuate violence against women that the debate became nationally heated. Of course, this dialogue often descends into morality versus legality, despite the fact that worrying about corrupted morals is a pretty lame excuse for putting vulnerable women at risk.
Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1
EYE WEEKLY's Decade in Review: Chris Bilton on drugs, gay marriage and prostitution
Features
The rights side of history
From drugs to gay marriage to prostitution, the 2000s marked a collective loosening of the collar
BY Chris Bilton December 22, 2009 21:12
Follow @EYEWEEKLY on Twitter.
Hands up everyone who spent New Year’s Eve of Y2K: a) high out of their minds; b) experimenting with same sexuality; c) partying with prostitutes; or d) all of the above. Yup, that’s what I thought. Some would blame these actions on your basic NYE debauchery or end-of-the-world fear mongering. On the other hand, lots of folks would chastise this kind of behaviour as being immoral, unholy or simply illegal. Despite such protestations, a great many of us would be more inclined to defend their drug use or sexual preference with something along the lines of: actually, this is who I am, so deal with it.
After all, the turn of the century also marked the end of one of the most self-obsessed, pop-culture-inflected, sociological Petri dishes of a decade since the 1960s. So it’s not surprising that Personal Choice would be the prevailing factor for how people — especially those flirting with adulthood — approached things like drug use and sexuality. Contrary to the fears of parents everywhere, this was actually a good thing. In the conflicted decade that followed — where anyone could get rich and yet most of the world still lived in poverty; where we waged war on terror and yet never really knew the enemy; and where an increasing portion of our lives could be accessed on any home computer — egocentricity became an undeniable force for change.
As we, as a society, became more open to the power of personal choice, the rules governing these personal choices became far less appropriate. And while the laws surrounding drugs, same-sex marriage and prostitution are by no means perfect, a great deal of progress was made in the ’00s. Some laws were overturned, some were modified and some are still simply under consideration. But at least there has been a general movement towards de-moralizing the institution of marriage, or certain herbal crops or even the world’s oldest profession. In these three cases, we came a little bit closer to granting more people their basic human rights.
The Chronic 2001
From hippies to High Times magazine to Cheech and Chong to Snoop Dogg, dope smokers have long been a part of pop culture as an overt projection of how common drug use really is. Many of us recognize the hypocrisy that some drugs are perfectly acceptable for mass consumption while others — those "un-taxed drugs", as Bill Hicks would say — remain illegal. Some subvert the laws by treating pot smoking as a better alternative to beer or cigarettes, while others have gone so far as to explore the medical benefits of marijuana.
The latter context served as the basis for the historical day in Canada when we became the first country to adopt regulations for medicinal marijuana use. This meant that people suffering from AIDS or cancer, for example, would be able to have access to government-approved pot. Ironically, these regulations made way for an unexpected shift towards decriminalization when in 2003 a Supreme Court ruling said that allowing access to pot without providing a legal supply is unconstitutional. And for a brief period in Ontario during that year, marijuana was actually decriminalized.
In Kensington Market, Toronto’s counter-culture haven, Abi Roach took advantage of this legal reprieve and opened The Hot Box Café in the back of Roach-O-Rama that boasted a spacious back patio on which any paying customer would be free to smoke whatever pot they brought with them. The Hot Box continued to operate long after the temporary decriminalization ceased, providing a hassle-free place to smoke right up to this day. One thing about public pot smoking remained taboo however, and that was that you still couldn’t buy marijuana.
That all changed with Dominic Cramer, the “Mayor of Yongesterdam.” Cramer — who had been operating a compassion club since 1997 — opened Vapor Central above his Toronto Hemp Company, where for a membership fee, people would be free to smoke as they pleased. He has since expanded his operations to include the Kindred Café, a place that a recent Toronto Life profile touted for its high-powered milkshakes-plus (as Alex and his droogs would say).
While pot is still very much illegal, the public perception of its use has changed so drastically over the past decade that cases like Marc Emery’s extradition to the US or the 2008 raid on Kindred Café seem far more outrageous than a bunch of happy stoners celebrating April 20th with a public toking session.
Do you, Michael, take Michael to be your husband?
The most important human rights case of the decade, however, has to be the long overdue recognition of same-sex marriage. The year 2000 marked the 20th anniversary of Toronto’s pride parade — a celebration that’s become an institution in this town and across the globe, which, at the time, even counted the support of staunch conservatives like former mayor Mel Lastman. While Toronto prides itself on being one of the most inclusive cities in the world, the fact that a specific group of its consenting adult citizens couldn’t be legally recognized life-partners was like a “whites only” sign on the institution of marriage.
Though two same-sex couples were legally married in 2001, it wasn’t until 2003 when a Supreme Court ruling upheld the Charter of Rights’ equality provisions that these marriages would also be registered and given a licence. Michael Stark and Michael Leshner then became the first officially gay-married couple only hours after the court’s ruling was set. Other provinces followed suit, as did the federal government in 2005 when it issued the Civil Marriage Act of Canada. Sadly, the same can’t be said in the hope-filled climate of our neighbours to the south, where appalling legislation like Proposition 8 gets passed even in otherwise progressive left-coast California.
“Punish the products but not the machine”
But the most contentious of these three human-rights struggles is the one that’s been going on since the Code of Hammurabi: prostitution. Ironically, prostitution is also the lone case where the act itself is already legal. But the laws surrounding the sex trade, which effectively prevent any act associated with prostitution — like soliciting in public or operating a brothel — mean that sex workers have to conduct their business without any legal or societal protection whatsoever. Needless to say, this fact is hardly a deterrent.
Even when dire circumstances of this situation become a national tragedy — as in the case of Robert Pickton and the dozens of Vancouver sex workers missing or murdered — there seems to be little opportunity for discussing the rights of prostitutes. Thus it was really only this year, when Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch came before the Supreme Court to argue that Canada’s prostitution laws perpetuate violence against women that the debate became nationally heated. Of course, this dialogue often descends into morality versus legality, despite the fact that worrying about corrupted morals is a pretty lame excuse for putting vulnerable women at risk.
Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1