Those caps are called ‘toques.’ Coincidence, or something more?
11/24/06

You know those knits caps they wear in Canada? Well, that cap is called a “toque,” which is pronounced “toke.” I used to think that was just a funny coincidence, but after reading this week’s top story, I gotta wonder.

A news article was just released about two Canadian college professors who smoke marijuana to help them cope with chronic medical conditions. As I read the story, hundreds (well, several anyway) of memories of my own college career came rushing (truth be told, it was more like straggling) back.

Now, college professors smoking the wacky tobacky ain’t exactly earth-shaking news – even in Canada. If they’d found two profs who didn’t smoke the weed, that would be news. No, the story here is that, not only do these profs turn on, they do so on campus – and legally. In fact, they even got their employers to build ‘em specially ventilated rooms on campus where they can blaze away in peace and quiet.

Man, back when I was in school you’d have to be stoned to even dream this stuff up. But times have changed and – let’s face it – Canada isn’t exactly Oklahoma circa 1972.

One of the profs is Brian MacLean. He’s a criminology professor at York University and suffers from a severe form of degenerative arthritis. He says toking up “helps me to keep the pain at a distance so I can focus on my work." When I was in college, we used the herb superb to keep class work at a distance so we could focus on our Pink Floyd albums and our Frisbee golf.

"Without the medication, I am disabled and I'm not able to carry out meaningful and valuable, productive work." That’s pretty much what we used to say in college, except we said, “uh” every third word and giggled a lot.

The story said MacLean now uses a special vaporizer that allows him to absorb the medical components of marijuana without the residues that come from smoking a joint. We had the same sort of thing back in college, only we called it a bong.

It took MacLean three months to get his university to accommodate his condition. A colleague, University of Toronto philosophy professor Doug Hutchinson, spent a year getting his school to do the same thing. The article didn’t specify why it took so long but I wouldn’t be surprised if Hutchinson kept losing his paperwork, or missed a deadline because he was stuck to the futon watching a “Star Trek” marathon on The SciFi Channel.