Sat, May 30, 2009 page18

• Vancouver mulls Games motto of aiming ‘higher’

  • BLOOMBERG
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  Is it an Olympic torch or a big, fat joint?

  Some people in Vancouver are wondering, as the marijuana capital of Canada gears up to host next year’s Winter Games. The silver and white torch, when lit, reminds them of a marijuana cigarette, giving new meaning to the Games’ motto of aiming “higher.”

  “It’s white, there’s the fire, and there’s its irregular size that’s wide in the middle and thin on both ends,” said Jonathan Mercier, 27, a tourist from Montreal. He’s not surprised that the torch is being dubbed the “Olympic toke.”

  

  The Vancouver 2010 Olympic torch is shown in a handout photo taken on Feb. 18. The torch has been compared to a marijuana joint.

  PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

  Vancouver Games organizers, who plan to escort the Olympic flame on a 45,000km public relay across Canada before the Feb. 12 opening ceremonies, are happy to get the free publicity.

  “We’re thrilled that people are talking about the torch design” in Canada and the US, said Jim Richards, 45, the Games’ director of torch relays. “It’s absolutely tremendous.”

  US comedian Jimmy Kimmel, on his late-night television program last week, poked fun with a doctored photograph purportedly showing gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps smoking the torch. Jim Rome also lampooned the torch in a commentary on ESPN television last Thursday.

  A team of 80, including aerospace engineers, designed the stainless steel and aluminum torch at Montreal-based Bombardier, said Isabelle Rondeau, a spokeswoman for the world’s third-biggest airplane maker. The torch, weighing 1.6kg and stretching 95cm, is meant to symbolize winter sports, ice and snow, Rondeau said.

  “The real inspiration was the winter landscape and the lines that skis make in the snow,” Rondeau said.

  Locals may have reason to see things differently. British ­Columbia, the third-most populous Canadian province, leads the nation in marijuana production, said Sergeant Bill Whalen of the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia, an arm of the provincial government.

  The 300 block of West Hastings Street is home to shops selling marijuana paraphernalia and to the Marijuana Party’s so-called vapor lounge, where people heat up marijuana and inhale the fumes.

  Reaction to the torch controversy has been mellow in that neighborhood, said Jodie Emery, 24, an editor of Cannabis Culture magazine.

  “It’s a coincidence that Vancouver is very marijuana-friendly, and known for being such, and that the torch for the Vancouver Olympics looks like a marijuana joint,” said Emery, whose husband, Marc, has campaigned to legalize marijuana in Canada.

  Still, she’s keeping her mind open to more conspiratorial explanations.

  “Maybe somebody on the design team might have tried to slip that in,” Emery said.
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