No not a mistype, we're all bored of the senseless war on drugs, so it is nice to see that the Canadian army is now fighting a war with drugs. Canada of course is famous for its high quality and relatively liberal cannabis output (for example the notorious BC Bud), but until now it was more used for medical and recreational purposes than military.

Whilst the Canadian army was fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan they came across forests of 10-foot-tall cannabis plants. It seems that the plants are good absorbers of energy, including heat. Therefore the Taliban fighters can duck in and out of them, immune to Canadian heat-sensing technology.

The obvious solution was to burn the forest down. Whilst the Poorhouse has never heard of people having too much trouble igniting cannabis, apparently it was difficult in this case. Even using diesel and white phosphorous (a potentially-banned chemical weapon used by the Americans in Iraq despite their initial lies denying it) did not do the job. Every now and then one would set on fire, but even that brought with it problems.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action."

said General Rick Hillier of the Canadian defense staff.

A soldier encountering such a problem with this plant material - who one assumes was rather well-used to the "ill effects" it produced - has been quoted as saying "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

But all is not lost. The Canadians seeing the potential of cannabis camouflage have started covering their armoured vehicles with cannabis. This technique was of course used in the past by celebrity stoners Cheech and Chong in their first film Up in Smoke. Anyone killed by such a vehicle will presumably provide a nice addition to the deaths caused by cannabis statistics.