You know that fall's not far off when our valley takes on that oh so sought after "Apocalypse Now" ambiance yearned for by rural communities everywhere.

Yep, most of yesterday our sleepy little valley resonated with the endless rumble of the drug helicopters flying over in precise grids, using their special cameras to look for the infrared signature of marijuana. It's become an annual thing here, as seasonal as the brilliance of the maple leaves each autumn.

It bothers me. It bothers me a lot, but not because I have problems with the wacky tabacky itself.

See, unlike Bill Clinton I'll freely admit that yes, yes I did inhale back in my misspent youth.

You know, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

But it's been a long time since I've purchased any grass because as I see it, I can't afford to be blitzing any of the few remaining brain cells I still have limping along.

Believe you me, at my age you nurture those little puppies because how far away can the Depends and the dribble cup be?

Exactly.

So yeah, I don't have problems with the marijuana and if I was Marn Queen of the World I'd decriminalize it, but with a caveat. If you are enough of a festering half wit to operate any machinery more complicated than a toaster while stoned, I want the courts to bitch slap you so hard that not only you but anyone who even vaguely looks like you never, ever does it again.

Impaired is impaired whether it's alcohol or weed, and I don't want some moron stupid enough to be driving while blitzed to accidentally take me along with him in a twisted hunk of burning metal.

Okay, now is where I finally come to my point. Oh, c'mon, you KNEW I'd get there eventually, right?

While I don't have a problem with grass itself, I hate it that marijuana has become a business where I live.

I don't have any problem with someone producing a little homegrown for personal use, but if the government is willing to throw the kind of resources into this valley those helicopters represent, it means that we're a significant grass producing region.

The thing is, when it becomes big business then it becomes something else.

It's no secret that biker gangs run the trade here in Quebec. I think of the bikers as organized crime's pit bulls.

So at what point does this valley produce enough weed that instead of a few local lowlifes we get some seriously bad people coming in here to oversee it?

I hear the helicopter's rumble and I wonder about that.

I wonder about it a lot.

--Marn