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© by John Arkelian

The best of writing, photography, art, and argument – on everything from film to foreign policy.

“Ever dreamed of subscribing to a cultural magazine that doesn’t seem to be eating out of the hand of half a dozen media magnates? Something pluricultural and unassuming but nonetheless covering everything worth seeing, reading, doing or listening to for a season? Well, it exists, and in Canada to boot!”

“There is no on-line version or web site, which either makes John a dinosaur or a man of character. (I opt for the second, since the editorial team occasionally has a kind word for me.)”

John Howe — Canadian artist and co-conceptual designer on all three “The Lord of the Rings” motion pictures.

* Editor’s Note: The age of the dinosaurs has at last come to an end — with the arrival of this website!

Narcotic Follies: The perversity of normalizing recreational drug use

On October 24, 2018

© By John Arkelian

Is it just us, or is anyone else sick to death of the endless ballyhoo being made over the utterly perverse legalization of marijuana in Canada on October 17th?   We say perverse because normalizing the recreational use of a narcotic, by giving it an official stamp of approval, is inconsistent with the health and welfare of those who use it and society generally.  It’s true that certain other mood-altering toxic drugs (notably alcohol) are legal, but we see no coherent reason why narcotic use should be added to the list of socially (let alone legally) acceptable behaviors.  How is using a drug to alter the psyche a practice we should tolerate, let alone implicitly endorse?  Furthermore, this narcotic is typically imbibed by smoking it and inhaling its fumes.  Wasn’t smoking (of anything) supposed to be very bad for the health – of smokers and bystanders alike?   Finally, on the separate matter of the previously legalized use of cannabis for purported medicinal purposes, we remain skeptical.  If there truly were some medically demonstrable beneficial purpose for the drug, why hasn’t its active ingredient been rendered into pill form?  Instead, we have the preposterous spectacle of people smoking, deliberately inhaling smoke into their lungs, for some supposed health benefit.

Copyright © 2018 by John Arkelian

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