Rules for meeting the Queen: bow or curtsy, and leave the drugs at home.
HATFIELDS OF GREEN
Richard B. Hatfield had served as the premier of New Brunswick since 1970. His primary accomplishments involved economic development in his province, as well as leading the way to help make New Brunswick the first officially bilingual province.
Queen Elizabeth II visited Canada in 1984, as she has many times before and since, and Hatfield was selected to meet and escort her majesty for a spell, along with several other Canadian officials. During a routine inspection before Hatfield, the Queen, and the others were to board a plane, authorities found something in Hatfield’s suitcase: 35 grams of marijuana, sitting in an outside pocket.
CHARGING AHEAD
In the weeks following the discovery—and Hatfield’s arrest—the 53-year-old conservative premier said of the marijuana, “Obviously I do not know how it got there.” He had good reason to deny. Hatfield faced a fine of $750, or up to six months in prison, as 35 grams is a lot of marijuana—that amount is generally enough to charge a suspect for “intent to distribute.”
Hatfield was found not guilty on all charges. The judge in the case believed the premier’s “I don’t know how it got there” story, mentioning in his ruling that the marijuana discovery was leaked to the press, saying that a possible motive for planting could have been “the juiciest story ever to crack the media.’’
But the drug charges weren’t the end of Hatfield’s troubles. In February 1985, two young men appeared on television and claimed that Hatfield had given them marijuana and cocaine at a 1981 party, and that they witnessed Hatfield smoking pot.
While there were of course calls for Hatfield’s resignation, he refused. Hatfield resigned in 1987, when his party lost power in parliamentary elections.
Watertown, Ontario, is home to the world’s longest gum wrapper chain: 13,514 m (44,377’).