POT CANDIDATE SAYS HE'S NEVER SMOKED DRUG

A Marijuana Party candidate has entered the local federal race - but
he has never smoked marijuana.

Dan Banov, a 30-year Maple Ridge resident, said he wants to represent
the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission riding in Ottawa because he's
tired of crime and thinks he can do something to curb it.

Just this week Banov was a victim of crime.

The 58-year-old husband and father, who owns a business in Hope, said
he has to spend $1,000 to replace a window "because somebody smashed
it in to steal a couple of bottles of booze."

These crimes, he added, don't have to be routine.

"The philosophies of the Marijuana Party make a lot of sense," he
said on Monday.

"The prohibition of drugs has not solved any problems with regards to crime."

It is easier, he said, "for an elementary student to buy marijuana
and other drugs than it is for them to buy cigarettes in a store,"
all because tobacco has been legalized and regulated.

"That's my No. 1 concern."

Banov figures he can represent the platform of the Marijuana Party,
even without having toked.

"It's just important to be able to stand up for the things that you
believe in."

And now is the time for the fringe party to assert itself in Ottawa,
he concluded.

"I think a lot of people are pretty fed up with the way the mainline
parties are running."

Independent and alternative candidates, he said mentioning the late
Surrey-North MP Chuck Cadman, have always had more pull in the House
than mainstream MPs, Banov maintained.

"They make a much bigger impact on the direction of politics."

In Banov's discussions with voters, he said many are considering
going a different route when it comes to casting their vote on Jan. 23.