As this column is being written, mayors and councillors from across the province are at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention debating a call for the decriminalization of marijuana.

Don’t take out your bongs and blunts in celebration just yet — it is only a debate, but it’s at least getting the subject and arguments out in the open.

The times are a-changing, to be sure, and to quote Bob Dylan — which is totally appropriate... and also because I couldn’t find a way to work a Bob Marley song lyric in there. In the past, the pro-marijuana side consisted mainly of those in the counterculture (read: unwashed, long-haired stoners, students and the like) who led protests and demonstrations, but otherwise couldn’t really affect change.

Let’s face it: A guy in an anarchy T-shirt with 15 piercings in his face is not the right spokesman to change the mainstream’s perceptions. There’ve been some serious efforts to push for decriminalization, like from Vancouver’s Marc Emery, but his work got him busted and sent to a prison in the U.S.

However, now we have mayors and councillors (including those from our own little burg) debating the issues, and not just from the “all drugs are bad” point of view. Speaking at the convention will be members of Stop the Violence, a coalition of health, education and justice experts — including four former B.C. attorneys general — who all support the legal regulation and sale of pot under a public health framework. They argue that marijuana prohibition means big profits for organized crime, gang violence, and a clogging of the justice system.

The bottom line, they say from the front lines, is that the so-called war on drugs is a losing battle — just like alcohol prohibition was.

According to some statistics, more than 400,000 British Columbians regularly partake of the ganja, despite it being illegal. These people are lawyers, doctors, executives, journalists, politicians — not just students and unwashed stoners. So, pot use has actually moved from the so-called counterculture and fringe to mainstream use among professionals. The kids of the 1960s are the leaders of today, and they never bought into the whole “Reefer Madness” propaganda of the 50s… which is why pot regulation is being discussed both here in Canada and across the border in the U.S. in places like the states of Washington and California.

Again, don’t spark ’em up just yet. It will still be a while before those who partake can do so legally in this province — maybe even a long while, even though it’s a step in the right direction.

But you never know. So, maybe have something celebratory pre-rolled, just in case.