Do you think the Vancouver 2010 torch looks like a joint?

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Do you think the Vancouver 2010 torch looks like a joint?
Petti Fong
Western Canada Bureau Chief

VANCOUVERâ??All hail â?? or inhale â?? the 2010 Olympic Torch.

Or, as it's jokingly known around Vancouver, the Olympic Toke.

Composed of stainless steel, aluminum and sheet moulding, the torch was designed to evoke snow, ice, skiing and skating, but to many, the metre-long white torch looks suspiciously like a marijuana joint, especially when lit.

The observation has become so common in this city that it's hard to know who was the first to say, "Hey, doesn't that look like ..."

But the torch's resemblance to British Columbia's biggest cash crop was evident right away to Jodie Emery, editor of Cannabis Culture magazine.

"A lot of people come to Vancouver because it's marijuana-friendly, so I think people who already enjoy a joint themselves will feel a little more kinship to the Olympics," said Emery, who ran as a Green party candidate in the provincial election this month.

"I'm sure the organizers didn't intend for it to look like a joint, but that's what a lot of people are seeing."

The association between toking and the Olympics didn't begin with the torch, of course.

At the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan, Whistler skier Ross Rebagliati won, then lost, the gold medal in snowboarding after testing positive for marijuana. The medal was returned after Rebagliati explained he had inhaled second-hand smoke. And Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps was photographed in February smoking pot from a bong.

Industrial designer Mark Busse said he doesn't see a joint so much as a tweezer or scalpel.

"Sure, it may look a little bit like a joint, but I can tell you that what they were going for was ergonomics, sleekness, modernity," he said.

Suzanne Reeves, the Vancouver organizing committee's director of communications for the Olympic torch relay, said she has taken the torch across the country and people's faces light up when they get the chance to hold it.

At Nathan Phillips Square a couple of weeks ago, Reeves said she had the torch in a bag when a cyclist went by and did a double-take when he saw what she had.

Reeves said what she sees when she looks at the torch is the edge of snow and an unfurling flag.

"It's quite magical. Most people's reactions are emotional," she said.

The torch will be carried by 12,000 people over 45,000 kilometres as it makes its journey across Canada.

Because the torch will travel through the winter months, it had to meet some tough technical requirements, including being able to withstand high winds, cold temperatures and different altitudes.

The torch officially is meant to resemble the lines left behind by skiers and skaters on snow and ice.

Any double â?? or doobie â?? entendres, officials say, are purely unintentional.

Yeah it does, that's some funny shit.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are taking the mellow approach to suggestions that their planned Olympic torch looks like a marijuana cigarette.

"We're not worried about it at all," Dave Cobb, the executive vice-president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) told reporters on Wednesday, in response to a newspaper article that dubbed the torch "The Olympic Toke."

Vancouver is a major production area for illegal marijuana, and there has been quiet snickering about the comparison since the high-tech metal torch was unveiled in February to mark the one-year countdown to the Winter Games.

The torch's design is intended to "represent Canada through the contours of winter landscapes and lines of winter sports," according VANOC's website.

But the design is slightly crimped at each end, with a twist in the body, giving it at least a passing resemblance to a hand-rolled marijuana joint.

"I think people are poking a little bit of fun at us," VANOC Chief Executive John Furlong said.

The torch will travel the length and breadth of Canada in a 106-day, 45,000-km (27,275-mile) relay that starts in October and ends with the lighting of the Olympic Flame in Vancouver in February 2010.

VANOC says it has had more requests from Canadian communities wanting to participate in the torch relay than the schedule can handle. The route will stay within Canada.

(Reporting Allan Dowd; editing by Janet Guttsman)