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By now you may have heard that Rob Ford, the Mayor of Toronto, was caught with his mouth on a crack pipe, according to a video that hasn't been released to the public.

Apart from the tipster who filmed the scene on his cell phone, only three people are known to have viewed it: John Cook, editor of Gawker, and two reporters at the Toronto Star, a major daily that has been consistently critical of Ford. Cook and the Star reporters, Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan, saw the footage separately in Cold War, pass-the-briefcase style encounters with the tipster.

Along with news reports that emerged on May 16, the public has seen but a single image. The shot, which is not from the video but was delivered by the same tipster, shows Ford grinning at the camera while flanked by three men. The implication is that this was another instance in which Ford was smoking crack and perhaps that he bought drugs from the men. One of them, holding a beer and gesturing tastefully at the photographer, is 21-year-old Anthony Smith, who was shot and killed March 28 outside a nightclub. Police are investigating the murder and so far have found no connection to Ford.

With so little evidence made public and the tipster nowhere to be found, the case remains mysterious. But the journalists, with their careers and credibility on the line, agree that the video shows Ford smoking out of a glass crack pipe, giggling with men off screen. In addition, Doolittle and Donovan have Ford calling Justin Trudeau, leader of the Canadian Liberal Party, a “faggot.” They also claim that he describes the members of his youth football team, which he coached intensively until a few weeks ago, as “just fucking minorities.” Cook isn’t sure about those comments. If the Star’s account is more detailed, it may be because Doolittle and Donovan saw the video three times, while Cook’s report suggests he saw it only once.

Ford denied the allegations and has mostly ducked the spotlight since they arose, though he made headlines by sacking his chief of staff without a word of explanation. Mark Towhey, by all accounts a loyal and competent aid, was escorted out of city hall by security guards on May 23. Even Ford’s brother Doug, a city councilor, had only praise for Towhey, though eventually an anonymous source in the mayor’s office told the National Post that Towhey was leaking information about the video.

Allies are baffled, with one member of Ford’s executive council telling the Globe and Mail, “I am definitely losing confidence.” The press and political opponents are calling for Ford’s resignation.

Those opponents are many. Ford is notably indiscrete, regularly showing up drunk and incoherent at public gatherings. He has joked about lynching the homeless and allegedly groped a rival politician. His policy positions are occasionally senseless. For instance, he opposes bike lanes because “we don’t live in Florida” and believes that cyclists injured or killed on the road had it coming.

Ford sparks easily and fiercely, as a Globe and Mail columnist grown tired of his evasions discovered, perhaps not for the first time, after calling Ford a “fat fuck.” The columnist, John Barber, was subsequently hounded out of the building by Ford and an associate. “Why are you going away?” Ford shrieks. “Can’t you face the music?” He and his man follow Barber through a tunnel, block his escape via an elevator, and chant, “Why are you running, Barber?” as he exits via a staircase. The epithet was unprofessional and unwarranted, but witness the vigor with which Ford stalks Barber out, the relentlessness of his return fire. Ford relished the encounter.

In debates, Ford manipulates and intimidates his adversaries, effectively seizing the low ground. Against vastly more articulate opponents who fight just as hard as he does, Ford haltingly and irritatingly talks as though he hasn’t heard anything but the questions he makes up for himself in his own head. That is until he returns to the matter at hand and berates a colleague as “a slithering snake” or a “waste of skin.”

To top it off, Ford, a millionaire businessman, cynically and successfully campaigned as an everyman battling the elites who didn’t want to see a person of his rough qualities in the mayor’s office. No doubt his media critics only enhance this image by emphasizing his gaffes, his obesity, his alcoholism, his general climate of not caring very much about what they, the press, think of him.

All of which is to say that a lot of people wanted to see Rob Ford gone long before anyone had an inkling that he might be smoking crack. This could be one blunder too many, and too severe.

But it shouldn’t be. I say let Rob Ford smoke crack.

The problems are obvious: lawbreakers and addicts are vulnerable to blackmail, which is especially worrisome in the case of politicians; as public figures, politicians become role models for children; and we rightly expect those in positions of power to be at the top of their game mentally.

Only the last of these provides a good reason to think about booting Rob Ford—in addition to those Torontonians already have—and voters can do that in the next election. But the illegality and stigma of drug use are functions of prohibitions that are more trouble than they’re worth. And ask yourself if a reduction in celebrity drug scandals would significantly affect use in any age group. Besides, some bad role modeling is a small price compared to the toll taken by the war on drugs, which to date has run about $1 trillion in the United States alone, has helped this country become the world’s largest jailer, and has cost untold numbers of lives globally through gang clashes, police and military crackdowns, and otherwise-avoidable overdoses.

Toronto won’t wither away because its mayor (probably) smokes crack. By contrast, laws against crack and other drugs have contributed to serious decline in urban centers all over the world. Say what you will about Ford’s policies and antics, but there’s less to fear from a politician who gets high than from one intent on making sure that nobody can.

image courtesty of Wikimedia Commons