The World of Dentistry

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The Bartlett pear (called Williams pear in England) is one of the tastiest and juiciest fruit in North American supermarkets. It’s hard to believe that by chewing on this soft delicacy, much to my dismay, I managed to break the filling on one of my lower molars.

Dental problems started to appear about 10,000 years ago, when humans stopped roaming the land to settle in villages and towns. At that time, mankind’s eating habits changed as our ancestors began eating more sugar, a leading cause for cavities.

Could it be that toothaches are God’s curse on the children of Cain for adopting their father’s sedentary living?

Cain was a farmer and his brother Abel was a nomad. Abel sacrificed the firstborns of his cattle to God who seemed to enjoy it. However, the zucchini, carrots and celery Cain offered up weren’t to the Almighty’s taste, maybe because Cain neglected to serve them with ranch dressing.

It took a long time for people to understand tooth decay. In olden times, cavities were thought to be caused by worms. In ancient Egypt, dental malformation in children was treated by feeding skinned and cooked mice to toddlers. In China, cavities were filled with bat dung. In Spain, frequent mouthwash with urine was key to good oral hygiene.

In the Middle Ages, tooth pullers began exercising their trade in public squares, promising their clients painless relief. Of course they were lying through their teeth but it provided great entertainment for crowds who had neither TV nor Internet to kill time. Tooth pullers also removed calluses.

In those days, dentistry and pedicure drank at the same well.

When Renaissance arrived, hairdressers joined the dental trade bandwagon. Noble ladies of Florence could thus have tartar removed from their teeth while getting a perm or having their hair styled.

In the 18th century, Pierre Fauchard, the “father of modern dentistry,” published The Surgeon Dentist in which he recommended the use of heavy metals for tooth fillings. He also endorsed regular mouthwash with urine.

A man collected his own urine in a bottle to use as mouthwash. Beware of unproven personal hygiene advice: it might just be a fad... especially if it’s gross.

Progress cannot be stopped but it sometimes takes a while to occur.

You can understand why I have always had mixed impressions about dental medicine. Should it be considered a science? An art? A technical trade?

With this in mind I began looking for a dentist. I chose a new dental office that had just opened in a strip mall close to where I lived, tucked between a video rental store, a pizza parlor and a realtor’s office.

Doctor Nguyen’s office was new, tidy, tastefully decorated and equipped with the latest technology. The good doctor was a pretty 30 year-old woman who had recently graduated from a Las Vegas dental school, a city that does not readily come to mind when you seek higher education.

I was told however that its dental schools have an excellent reputation.

After her examination, Doctor Nguyen told me that my decayed molar needed a crown but first I had to see a dental surgeon who would lower my gum, raise my jaw and perform root canal surgery. She would make the necessary arrangements for me.

Root canal surgery is a procedure in which the pulp of a damaged tooth is removed with files, reamers, drills and other precision instruments. Although this treatment sounds painful, the Polish surgeon I went to see possessed undeniable skills.

He first gave me a solid local anesthetic and then put on a blaring Johnny Cash CD to distract me from the abominations he was performing in my mouth using sharp objects.

I did not feel a thing.

When I saw Doctor Nguyen again, she worked for several minutes on my molar before saying: “This won’t do.”

She led me to her office. My mouth was numb from the anesthetic and I was still wearing the necessary bib that dentists tie around the neck of their patients while they intervene.

Doctor Nguyen turned on a giant screen on which I could see the digitized x-ray image of my mouth.

“You see, I can’t install a crown because your teeth are out of alignment, specifically here, here and here as well as on all this side of your mouth,” she said pointing at teeth with her laser pen.

“This is what I suggest: I will make a set of braces to adjust your teeth. You will wear it in your mouth for six to twelve months, long enough for your teeth to be redressed. This treatment will cost about $1,800. Your parents would have done well to take you to a dentist when you were a child.”

I refrained from telling her about my grandfather who lived the last 30 years of his life with only three teeth in his mouth and who saw a blacksmith when he had a toothache.

“Then I will install crowns on the teeth of your lower jaw which will no longer be aligned with those of the upper jaw. It’s about twelve crowns and it will cost $15,000 to $18,000. We can start the treatment next week.”

I asked Doctor Nguyen for a few days to think about it.

“You know, many people would not hesitate one moment to mortgage their house to receive such a treatment,” she said.

“Oh! I believe you!” I replied. “However, just to satisfy my curiosity, how much would it cost to have all my teeth pulled out to replace them with dentures?”

“About $10,000 but I wouldn’t recommend it,” she answered.

I thanked her, paid for the treatment I already had received and left her office, dizzy from novocaine and the astronomical amounts that she had quoted me for fixing my teeth.

A friend suggested I seek a second opinion and recommended a Swedish dentist for whom her sister worked as a dental assistant.

So I went to see Doctor Svensson, a middle-aged lady who looked in my mouth mumbling “I see, I see...”

Then she asked me:

“Is your dentist young? Her office and equipment, are they all computerized?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

“Dear sir, I think I can fit you with a crown. Would you prefer gold or porcelain? I believe a gold crown would look good on you. A gold crown costs $900, a porcelain crown, $1,200.”

“Gold would be nice,” I replied sheepishly promising myself to light a candle to Saint John Maynard Keynes who suggested the gold standard be replaced with the porcelain standard at the Bretton-Woods Conference in 1944.

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist who played a key role in the signing of the Bretton Woods Agreement in New Hampshire. As a result of this agreement, the gold standard was dropped. The porcelain standard is my invention. If you exchange your money for porcelain, you will be disappointed.

Two weeks later I was proudly wearing my new gold crown. It felt good and I was relieved that I did not have to rinse my mouth with urine.

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Hospital Diaries V: The Seagull

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Version française

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This is part of a series. You can begin at Part I and follow the link at the end of each installment to read the next.

When everybody around you is suffering, your own pain becomes less important. I quickly realized that my complaining and moaning weren’t providing any relief. I was only contributing to the overall noise in the gurney hall.

A nurse had taken away my bottle of ibuprofen and the painkillers that they had given me were totally ineffective. I was too stiff to move and the thin blanket covering me was not keeping me warm. I was in constant pain and felt helpless.

When another nurse came to check my vital signs, he noticed my distress and asked:

“How are you sir? Are you in pain? Can you rate your pain?”

I could not understand why nurses insisted on wanting me to rate my pain on a scale from zero to ten. I felt it was impossible to draw meaningful conclusions from such subjective impressions.

“It hurts a lot,” I answered.

“You were given a painkiller two hours ago,” said the nurse after looking at my chart. “Maybe it’s not pain you’re feeling but only discomfort.”

I was not in the mood to discuss semantics and I gave the nurse a spiteful glance.

Pain is a reaction to an unpleasant stimulus. Tolerance to pain can vary deeply between individuals. The most common tool used to measure pain is a standard scale graded from zero to ten. The accuracy of this tool is questionable.

“You’re probably right,” I said with sarcasm, “and I’m also very cold.”

“In that case I can help you.”

The nurse went away and came back with a warm blanket to wrap me in. I dozed off almost immediately.

During this first night in the gurney hall, my neighbour who had broken her back was transferred to an actual hospital room and I now had a new roommate who was retching loudly behind the thin curtain separating us.

When I woke up in the morning a tall slim man in a white smock was standing by my stretcher.

“I looked at your MRI results and saw that you have light arthrosis on two of your lower back vertebrae. That would explain your spinal stenosis and could be the cause of your paralysis.”

The hospital staff spoke in a strange language that I could barely understand. They also tended to show up unexpectedly and never introduced themselves. I found this extremely annoying.

“That’s interesting,” I said snidely. “Who are you sir and what do you do?”

“My name is Dr. Sharp and I’m a neurosurgeon. I doubt surgery on your spine would be beneficial. You don’t have severe arthrosis and I do not recommend this operation”.

Surgery is too often viewed casually by patients and doctors alike in the Western world. However there is something creepy in having masked strangers performing mysterious acts with sharp objects on sleeping people, don’t you think?

“Dr. Sharp, are you telling me I have arthritis?” I said confused.

“No. I said arthrosis. Arthrosis is a degenerative disease of the bone cartilage. Arthritis is a swelling of the joints. Arthrosis is a wearing down of the bone cartilage that often occurs with age.”

“And what is spinal stenosis?” I asked.

“Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal where the spinal cord is located. In your case, arthrosis may be the cause of that narrowing but as I just said I don’t think surgery will be helpful.”

“I’m relieved,” I replied. “Spinal surgery sounds risky.”

Unimpressed by my comment, the doctor gave me a blank look and added:

“In any case, I will discuss this with my colleagues and we’ll talk about it later.”

I was never to see Dr. Sharp again. I often wondered if that hospital didn’t hide some kind of “Bermuda Triangle” that mysteriously swallowed up doctors.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area of the Atlantic Ocean between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda where many ships and aircraft have vanished. Some people believe that the Earth’s magnetic field is to blame for these incidents. This might also explain the shortage of doctors in hospitals.

That morning my friend Lucide called me on my cellphone to see how I was and to find out if I had been given a room. I took the opportunity to ask her to bring me some ibuprofen to relieve my aching body.

While I was on the phone a man with dark hair and bushy eyebrows rushed in.

“So, are you ready for your surgery?”

“What surgery?” I said, startled.

“Well, the operation on your spine to get rid of your nasty arthrosis, of course!”

“I thought this procedure wouldn’t be necessary! But first of all, who are you sir?”

“My name is Dr. Backridge and I am a neurologist. Who told you this operation would be unnecessary?”

“Erm... It was doctor... Huh... I can’t recall his name but he was some kind of brain surgeon who came to visit me this morning,” I said, befuddled. “You’ll probably find his name in my file.”

“I never read patients’ files, they’re totally unreliable,” the doctor said with a twitch. “So? Do you agree? Can I book the operating room?”

I felt cornered. I am not impulsive by nature and, right at that moment, I did not have all the information to make such a serious decision and weigh its consequences objectively.

The doctor was rocking nervously on his heels while tapping with a pen on a clipboard.

“Dr. Backridge, can you guarantee arthrosis is the cause of my illness?”

“A 100% guarantee? No, I can’t say that for sure but it’s a possible cause.”

“Doctor, I hope you can understand how I feel. Right now I can’t walk and I’m afraid that if I get this operation I will never be able to walk again.”

The doctor gave me a fierce look.

“Listen sir, don’t waste my time. If you don’t agree to this surgery, I can see only one explanation...”

“Which is?”

“You’re putting on an act! You’re faking!” he snapped.
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He then turned and left abruptly, his white smock flapping behind him like the wings of a giant bird. He made me think of a seagull that comes out of nowhere, making a lot of noise, shits everywhere and leaves as he had come without ever accomplishing anything.

“I would not mind if this doctor got lost in the Bermuda Triangle,” I thought.

Seagulls have existed for at least 30 million years. This bird with the obnoxious squawking can be found anywhere there is a lot of water. It will eat anything but seems to enjoy feeding on human garbage.

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To be continued in: Hospital Diaries VI: The Overflow

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Hospital Diaries IV: The Gurney Hall

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Version française

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This is part of a series. You can begin at Part I and follow the link at the end of each installment to read the next.

A hospital is a strange world filled with machines and enigmatic people speaking unintelligible languages. For example, after only a few hours at the hospital, my vital signs had already been checked several times (I guess to make sure I was still alive), I had been incubated and rolled away on a stretcher through a maze of hallways to a “gurney hall.”

The gurney hall was actually a large square room of the emergency ward where patients waited either for a diagnosis or for a bed to become available. Along the outer walls, about 20 cubicles could accommodate two gurneys each, separated by a thin curtain. In addition, five glassed-in rooms were used to isolate contagious patients and the dying.

My cubicle neighbour was an unfortunate victim of a sporting accident, a 42 year-old woman who broke her back hitting a mogul while tobogganing with her children.

A toboggan is a runnerless sled used to travel over snow in Canada. It was designed by Natives to haul supplies and young children. Nowadays tobogganing is popular among Canadian children and their parents who have forgotten they are not as flexible as in their youth. Illustration: Dog-sledges of the Mandans by Johann Carl Bodmer. Source: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, public domain

A nurse showed up at my bedside bringing with her the usual equipment for taking blood pressure and temperature as well as a clipboard to scribble notes.

“Good morning sir, my name is Florence and I will be your nurse today. Are you in pain? Can you give me an estimate of your pain?”

Maybe I was confused because of my sufferings but I didn’t understand the question: for a moment I thought I was supposed to estimate my pain in Canadian or US dollars.

“On a scale from 0 to 10 could you rate your pain?” explained the nurse.

“It hurts a lot,” I muttered.

“Very well. Let’s describe your pain as an 8 then. I will bring you some painkillers. If you need anything, just ring,” she said showing me an alarm button tied by its wire to my gurney’s railing. She then disappeared with her machines.

The pain was excruciating. With every move I made I moaned. Soon my cries were joined by my neighbour’s whimpers and the wailings of other patients in the gurney hall, cascading into a tormented concerto accentuated by the bells and alarms of monitoring machines.

After an hour of waiting for the painkillers that Florence promised me, I remembered I had some ibuprofen in my shoulder bag. I swallowed two capsules and drifted into a restless sleep.

“Wake up sir! I brought your medicine!”

It was Florence who was handing me two caplets of acetaminophen and a glass of water.

As I was about to take the pills from my nurse, she noticed the bottle of ibuprofen on my bed.

“What’s that? Who gave you this medication?” she enquired as she picked up the muscle relaxant.

“Nobody, I answered, it’s the medicine I was taking at home to ease the pain and the swelling.”

“Did your doctor prescribe this?”

“Not at all, it’s available over the counter in any drugstore and it provides me with some relief,” I replied.

“Sir, you are not to take medication that is not prescribed by a doctor. I must report this right away.”

And she left taking with her my valuable remedy and the painkillers she was supposed to give me.

Stunned to see my medication confiscated, I uneasily managed to doze off.

When I woke up, a smiling bearded little man who looked like a leprechaun was sitting at the foot of my stretcher, tapping on my leg.

“Good day, how are you today?” he said.

Still in a daze, I felt like I had magically awakened in Middle-earth and that anytime Gandalf the Grey and Frodo Baggins would come to take me on some outlandish journey.

“Not very well, but who are you?” I replied.

“My name is doctor Ogham and I am a neurologist. Please tell me how you ended up in my hospital.”

One more time I explained the unbelievable story of a gout attack that turned into a sprained knee degenerating into overall paralysis. While I was talking, the practitioner was feeling my knees, my wrists and my hands, taking notes in the process and asking me to flex my limbs.

“I see, I see,” said the doctor. “But I could see better with a CAT-scan, an MRI, an EMG, some X-Rays... I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

He then left as I was struggling to make sense of what he had just said.

One hour later, an orderly came to wheel my gurney to the nuclear medicine department to be irradiated with a scanner.

CAT-scans are 3-D images of the inside of a human body produced with an X-ray machine that looks like a giant bagel. In the last 25 years, medical imagery has become so common that the number of people exposed to radiation has been on the rise. This could explain the colour of the skin of the patient in the above photograph.

Several times in the next few hours I was to be rolled in and out of the gurney hall for tests.

Finally, I was taken to a room where Doctor Ogham hooked me up to an electromyograph, or EMG, that sent electric shocks to my nerves to see if my muscles would react.

Laying down as the neurologist was poking me with needles, I felt like a voodoo doll being subjected to some arcane ritual.

Voodoo is a complex religion which origins can be traced to the African slave trade. The voodoo doll, an amulet used to cast spells, became well known following the release of the 1932 Hollywood movie White Zombie. Fortunately, modern neurologists have little in common with voodoo witch doctors.

“This is strange, very strange,” said the good doctor, “Your muscles are reacting perfectly well. This does not look like a neurological problem, everything is working normally.”

Back to the gurney hall, I became acquainted with my neighbour who told me she was waiting for a brace to be made in order to stabilize her spine so she could sit up and move without risking any further injuries.

“Anyway, she said, they can’t keep me more than 48 hours in the emergency ward.”

“Why is that?” I enquired.

“That’s the maximum time allowed by the Ministry of Health. The hospital will be heavily fined if it goes over it. They better find me a bed quickly.”

Night had come. Lying shivering on my stretcher, I could feel the pain creeping back to my joints. How I wished the nurse had not stolen my ibuprofen!

I achingly reached for the alarm tied to my gurney’s railing. Bells were ringing and patients were crying in the gurney hall. Exhausted, I fell into a restless sleep waiting for a nurse to bring me drugs to ease away my pain.

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To be continued in Hospital Diaries V: The Seagull

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Hospital Diaries III: Incubation

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Version française

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This is part of a series. You can begin at Part I and follow the link at the end of each installment to read the next.

Parked in a wheelchair at the hospital’s emergency ward, I soon understood why sick people are called “patients.” Patience is the ability to wait in silence while surrendering to calamity.

Unfortunately, the young lady sitting in front of me did not grasp that concept. With her cell phone glued to her ear, she was ranting over the senselessness of the health care system.

“I’ve been waiting for five hours! I’ve had a splitting headache ever since I got vaccinated last week and I’m leaving for Thailand in two days! Why is nobody taking care of me? Don’t they realize this is an emergency?”

Many people think that all emergencies require immediate action. This is not so. There are different levels. Some emergencies need to be addressed without delay, others can wait a little while. Few are a priority.

While driving me to the hospital, my friend Lucide tried to reassure me about my stay at the hospital by telling me the difference between private and public healthcare systems.

“A private healthcare system sees patients as a source of revenues whereas a public system – such as the one we have in Canada – views them as expenditures. A public system aims at getting you well enough to send you home as quickly as possible in order to minimize costs. You’ll see: in a snap you‘ll be back in your apartment, happily cleaning it up.”

I was not as optimistic as my friend. I believed that the waiting time at the emergency ward could be long. That’s why I asked Lucide to prepare some supplies for me before leaving my place.

In a shoulder bag I had a sandwich, some apples, an orange, a few biscuits, a water bottle, two packs of cigarettes and a small jar of Ibuprofen, the muscle relaxant I was using as a pain reliever.

Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory drug used to alleviate fever, pain and swelling. One can say it is basically a “super Aspirin.” Ibuprofen is included in the core model list of essential medicines published by the World Health Organization and should be part of everyone’s medicine cabinet.

The enraged Thailand traveller was furiously pacing when I was called on the intercom.

Clumsily I wheeled my chair to an office where a nurse was waiting for me to check my “vital signs.” It took me a minute to understand she wanted to take my blood pressure and my temperature.

The nurse tightened an armband on my upper arm and stuck a thermometer in my mouth under my tongue.

Fever is measured by inserting a thermometer into the mouth, the rectum, the ear or under the armpit of a patient. It was only in the 19th century that doctors realized that fever was a symptom, not an ailment. Besides their taste, there is no difference between an oral and rectal thermometer.

While she was writing down the results I asked the nurse if she knew how soon I would see a doctor.

“Not right away. We’re very busy now. We will call you to let you know which cube you should go to.”

“A cube? What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

“That’s what we call our consultation rooms. Now if you could please return to the waiting room, I have other patients to see.”

I was not thrilled by the idea of being “incubated” at the hospital. I was also less than elated to wait for ten long hours until I was called to Cube 67. During this waiting time, several patients – including the traveller to Thailand – grew tired of waiting and left the ward without seeing a doctor.

I had been looking at the walls of Cube 67 for twenty minutes or so when a young doctor showed up. I told her why I had come to the hospital. I explained my gout attack, the torn ligaments in my twisted knee, the weeks spent in bed at home and my paralysis.

She wanted to examine me. To do so she had to call two orderlies to lift me up from the wheelchair and sit me down on a bed. I painfully took off my jacket and my shirt and put on an open-back smock that one of the orderlies tied at my neck with a lace.

After the doctor checked my knees, my hands, my wrists and my arms, she left the cube without a word.

I could hear her talking with a man on the other side of the door:

— “He’s well over 50, he can’t walk and he has trouble moving. I wonder if...” she said.

— “He’s got all the symptoms, said the man, it could very well be spinal stenosis.”

— “That’s exactly what I thought,” she concluded.

Those were the last word I heard from her and I was never to see her again.

After 30 minutes, a nurse came into the cube carrying a plastic basket filled with small glass bottles and stickers.

“I need to take some blood samples, she said. Please roll up your sleeve, sir.”

I obliged half-heartedly. The nurse filled 31 vials with my blood then left.

There I was, alone in my cube, sitting on a slippery leatherette and foam mattress. I was cold. My arms, my shoulders and my legs were sore. What would become of me? I did not know what “spinal stenosis” meant and I was afraid.

One of the most widespread myths of modern times is that medical officers specializing in nerves and the spinal cord are called “spin doctors.” Because of that belief, people think that spinal stenosis means these doctors write down their observations using shorthand. However, spinal stenosis is really about an abnormal narrowing of the spinal canal running through the backbone.

Shivering, I managed to stretch and pick up my jacket that the orderly had left on the wheelchair. Despite the pain, I put my coat on, lay down on the bed and dozed off.

When I woke up, a man dressed in tan scrubs was putting my clothes, my shoulder bag and my shoes under a gurney. He then proceeded to skillfully slide my body over to the stretcher.

The attendant opened the cube’s door and wheeled me out to the corridor. I asked him where he was taking me and he replied:

“Where am I taking you? Why, to the gurney hall, of course!”

A gurney is a wheeled stretcher used to take patients on a journey. It is often equipped with a hydraulic system for raising and lowering patients so the attendant does not injure his or her back and develop spinal stenosis.

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To be continued in Hospital Diaries IV: The Gurney Hall

Vision Quest

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In my head there is an English garden in which wander all the people I loved in my past but who are no longer alive.

You see, I do not believe people ever die and neither will I. I will simply waste time and space in the head of somebody unfortunate enough to have loved me and will probably bring with me all the people who are currently walking around aimlessly in my brain.

This is how a robust collective unconscious is built.

I woke up in the middle of the night last Sunday, got up and saw the moon peeking through the window as my maternal grandfather was idly strolling between my brain cells.

My grandfather did everything according to the moon. By looking at the moon, he knew when it was time to get a haircut, to start haying the fields, to slaughter the pig. The moon also told him when the snow would fall, when the cow would calve, and when the maple tree sap would start to flow in the spring.

For my part, I notice that a full moon or a new moon bring with them colder or warmer temperatures.

The Moon is Earth’s only natural satellite. Anaxagoras (c. 500-428 BC) reasoned that the Moon was a gigantic rock that reflected the light from the sun. All who believed the Moon was made of green cheese were bitterly disappointed by this discovery.

Several years ago, I was attending a rave that the son of a friend organized in a secluded valley in the countryside. Hundreds of people came from all over North America to dance to the grooves of legendary DJs from Europe, Australia, the United States and Japan.

Sparks from a huge bonfire rose upward into the night sky while people walked around carrying torches. Gregorian chants that the DJ played on a background of “drum and bass” added a mystical feeling.

I started talking to an old Inuit from Nunavut. I told him that my grandfather lived according to what the Moon was telling him.

“The Moon has nothing to say,” the old man replied. “The stars hold all wisdom.”

Then, Natalie, the old man’s granddaughter – 30 years old and sweet as could be – offered me some of those dried mushrooms that take you to another level.

I do not approach psychedelic drugs casually. As a teenager I viewed drugs, rightly or wrongly, as the key that opened the door to the gods when one needed a special revelation. Since the gods are very powerful and very busy, I always thought they should not be disturbed unnecessarily.

Hallucinogenic mushrooms are found everywhere in the world in more than 200 species. The psychoactive element of this fungus is called psilocybin, an alkaloid with pharmacodynamic properties. As you can see from what I just wrote, to truly understand what they are doing, drug users should hold a degree in pharmacology or chemistry. Many thanks to WPClipart for making this public domain image available

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That night, I felt the time was right for revelations. I accepted Natalie’s offer and she poured a few grams of dried mushrooms in the palm of my hand. It seemed to me like a lot but Natalie took my arm and said:

– It’s only residue. Nunavut mushrooms are very mild, don’t worry.

I chewed conscientiously and then swallowed the mushroom crumbs. Natalie and I sat on a downed tree trunk looking at the bonfire and people dancing, and waited for the mushrooms to work their magic.

We talked a little and I was feeling good. Natalie’s grandfather was standing nearby. He slowly raised his head and hands to the sky. He was different: he was now dressed in deerskins and was quietly singing in his language, shuffling his feet on the ground.

He was talking to the stars.

I watched him intently. I was no longer hearing the DJs’ music: only the soft song of the old Inuit was filling my ears.

My nose was itchy. Maybe it had been stung by a mosquito and now it was wet, probably because I scratched it until it bled. It was beginning to swell.

Actually, it was not swelling: it was GROWING.

I thought this was peculiar but interesting. I did not know where I was anymore. Everything started to waver rapidly and I fell on all fours. My face was turning into a snout and I was shivering as my skin was being covered with some kind of grey fur. I did not feel uncomfortable at all and strangely I was not afraid: this metamorphosis seemed to me absolutely in order. I began to howl gently.

The old Inuit was chanting and dancing by my side, beating on a drum as an accompaniment. For my part, I had turned completely into a coyote and my howling harmonized with the old man’s chanting.

Coyotes (canis latrans) can be found everywhere in North America. They are related more to the jackal than to the wolf. Coyotes are not an endangered species and sometimes mate with housedogs. In Germany, I’m told, coyotes have been crossbred with poodle dogs, probably to annoy the French. Many thanks to WPClipart for making this public domain image available.

I don’t know how long our performance lasted. All I know is that everything turned dark and when I gained consciousness, I was lying naked in a haystack in Natalie’s arms, still high from the magic mushrooms from Nunavut.

A few days later, back in town, I told my story to my friend Aaron who told me:

– Obviously you saw your totem...

– My totem? No, no, It was not a carved pole of scowling beasts with protruding eyes. I really turned into a coyote!

– A totem, you simpleton, is a protective spirit in North American Indian folklore. In your case, it seems your totem is the coyote. Unfortunate. You could have chosen better...

– I don’t understand...

– My poor friend, you never learned anything. The coyote is a deceiver, a trickster, a bit like Papa Legba in voodoo. The coyote stole fire from the Gods to give to mankind...

– Like Prometheus in Greek mythology, I wondered aloud to show that I had some cultural knowledge after all.

– If you say so, but the coyote keeps breaking rules, playing tricks even if his tricks have sometimes positive effects.

On my own after Aaron left, I thought about his last words and about the unorthodox path I had followed in life. To free myself from the constraint of rules, I often downgraded them to simple guidelines or mere suggestions, never hesitating to ignore them to achieve a goal I felt was more desirable.

“A wild dog as a protective spirit: I could have done worse,” I thought.

Totem poles carved by Pacific Northwest American Indians are monuments sculpted from large cedar trees representing the protective spirit of their tribe but also to serve as witnesses to major historical events or even as tombs for their ancestors. Totem pole carved by Mr. Henry Hunt (1923-1985) of the Kwawkewith Indian Band, British Columbia, Canada.

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Cannabis in Canada

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People often come to me and ask me all kinds of questions, assuming I know the answers. I must confess that when I don’t have one (which is often) I make one up, just to please my enquirers.

Strangely, the question that I’m asked most often is: “Why is cannabis illegal in Canada?” This one is tough, I had to go back 50 years or so in history to come up with an answer.

In the 60’s, when the United States of America was at war against the ferocious enemy that was Vietnam, many young men dodged the draft because they were not allowed to smoke cannabis while enlisted. Some of these people fled to Canada for protection and to quietly engage in their psychoactive hobby.

Unfortunately, at that time cannabis was not yet growing in Canada. Its closest cousin was some low-grade hemp, good enough to make ropes to hang people with – pretty useless in a country that had just abolished death penalty. American people are smart and known internationally for their entrepreneurship, so it is not surprising that these young American deserters imported seeds to grow their favourite crop.

A healthy cannabis crop in the great Canadian outdoors. The cannabis plant came to America from Eastern and Central Asia. The seeds were probably carried over by sea currents or the wind.

The summer of 67 was sunny, warm and humid: ideal conditions for pollination. Cannabis started to spread quickly in the great Canadian outdoors, so much that it became an invasive species.

Canadians are simple, hard-working people but they are not idiots. They soon realized the benefits of this new plant and began growing and using it.

Alas! Cannabis was growing so well in the rich and fertile Canadian country soil that it rapidly exceeded the needs of Canadian consumers. Regrettably, cannabis growers – who, like all farmers, hate any form of waste – started looking for external markets to get rid of their surplus.

This is how cannabis cultivation became what it is today, a flourishing export industry that would significantly contribute to Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) if only it was not a more or less underground activity.

Every year on April 20, thousands of demonstrators gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to openly indulge in cannabis smoking. The smoke and smell from this activity can linger for days. This in a city where it is illegal to smoke cigarettes in a public park. I never thought I would live to see that.

Of course, Federal departments dream of legalizing this economic activity to increase tax and royalties revenues. However, few people know that since taxes were introduced in Canada, the Prime Minister goes to bed each night weeping for Canadian taxpayers who work so hard only to remit more than half of their income in municipal, provincial, federal and sales taxes. You understand that Canadian statesmen cringe at the mere idea of collecting or introducing new taxes.

As well, the machinery of Government is awkward and costly. To regulate cannabis trade, more civil servants would need to be hired to manage the new program, implement complex administrative structures and develop strict monitoring and enforcement. A real nightmare.

By keeping the status quo, the Canadian Government avoids all kinds of hassle and the income from this product is able to circulate freely within the Canadian economy. Also, all durable and semi-durable commodities and real estate purchased thanks to the gains of this industry are already taxable. Of course this economic activity is impossible to monitor through the System of National Accounts, but maybe it is a lesser evil.

So this is why even though weed grows like weeds in Canada, it is still illegal to farm and use.

The true story probably has nothing to do with the one I just told but mine could make sense and it is entertaining, don’t you think?

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