Of pot and porn

There’s a few topics that we political reporters know will generate a good quote or blog post.

Animal regulations of any kind are on this list. So is the drug they call “Mary Jane.”

But it wasn’t the spliff talk that generated today’s post.

Monday featured a workshop by local teens asking for a ban on the sales of bongs and other “tobacco use only” (NOT!) items in stores where kids under 18 are allowed.

Nope, this time, during a workshop about marijuana, talk turned to porn, courtesy Councilor Jeanne Harris.

And it quickly became clear that everyone on the Vancouver City Council has no idea how they package dirty magazines for sale these days. (Or at least wants the voting public to think that).

Watch the clip here (starts at about 21 minutes in). Harris starts in by likening keeping porn under wraps in stores to keeping bongs and co. in a similar fashion.

“Here’s what I’m thinking, it’s kind of like we have adult magazines that are available for sale, but we don’t have them out in the magazine racks right?” Harris said. “I mean, I don’t even know if we, uh… they used to be in brown wrappers. I don’t know what they are now. Maybe they’re just online, I don’t know.”

Councilor Jeanne Stewart cuts in quickly, with an: “I don’t know either.”

Not to be outdone, the male members join in, in a chorus of “I don’t know either!” protestations.

But Councilor Bart Hansen then turns to Councilor Jack Burkman, to ask: “Jack, do you know?”

Burkman said: “I don’t know either.”

“Jack didn’t answer!” Stewart points out.

Harris then brought it back around, to say that if there’s not an all-out ban on sales of bongs in places like convenience stores, she could at least support putting them out of view.

“I feel for people when they walk into a store with a small child and have to explain what a bong is used for,” she said. “And really there’s just one explanation.”