Blacks Harbour — In an early morning press conference in Blacks Harbour, the Bay of Fundy Mer Folk unveiled a key element in their new tourism-based economic strategy.
“We want to be the underwater Amsterdam,” announced the minister of Mer Tourism and Trade, Numinex Aquaroo. His muscular human top-half glistened in the sun while his fishy bottom-half swished back and forth beneath the salty brine to keep him afloat. “Or Colorado with a mythical pirate theme.”
There are plenty of opponents to this bold new plan. Conservative mermaid Elsie Wave argues that the legalization of recreational drugs will only pollute their proud culture and attract the wrong kinds of visitors. “It’s bad enough when teenagers prowl the docks throwing beer bottles at us as target practice. Now they’re going to invade our turf, looking to score dope? This is unacceptable!”
Others cite health and addiction risks. Social worker Lindsay Splashmore agrees that marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms pose minimal health risks and deserve to be removed from the list of banned substances.”But why are they just legalizing all pills?” she asked. “It’s so generic!”
Aquaroo responded to these complaints in his press conference. He said that some compromises were necessary. “Some folks enjoy weed, others prefer pills. Who are we to judge?”
When asked to describe his intended target market Aquaroo said, “At first there will be a lot of hooligans and fiends. But once word gets out we will expand to lawyers and pop-stars. What we really want is the hippies, because everybody loves hippies and that will be the basis for our drug-tourism culture.
“People might think we’re just trying to lure their impressionable teenagers underwater,” he went on, “and we are! But it’s not their sex we want, it’s their Spanish doubloons!”
This underlines another major obstacle in the Mer drug-tourism plan. Their currency is based on rare pirate treasure and they refuse to deal with the Canadian dollar.
“Keep your filthy fiat currency! Give us gold!” exclaimed Aquaroo.
They plan to begin selling drugs in mid-August.