Montreal’s party scene is about to get a lot less comfortable as club owners prepare to implement Quebec’s controversial public safety law Bill 193. Under the new law, clubs that wish to hold on to their liquor licenses will have to implement a set of new safety measures to ensure that drug dealing doesn’t happen on their premises. The most egregious of these measures is one some lawyers say is unconstitutional. “They now expect bouncers to do random cavity searches of customers,” says civil rights advocate Preston Bofesse. “It’s outrageous. It’s totalitarian. It’s ridiculous. It’s a lot of things, but it isn’t a good law. It’s the opposite of that. Now that we’re forcing private businesses to violate the integrity of their customers anal canals as part of our war on drugs, it’s safe to say that our political leaders have lost the plot.”

Defenders of Bill 193 don’t see it that way, however. “I think anyone who is against Bill 193 has a faulty moral compass,” says drug warrior Bianca LeCavalier. “Drugs have ruined millions upon millions of lives, and we as a society need to band together and confront this threat using every tool at our disposal. Prisons have used random cavity checks for decades in their fight against drugs, so it’s only natural that the rest of society follow their lead.”

Bianca hopes that Bill 193 will prove so successful, that politicians will expand its scope to cover the whole of society instead of just clubs. “Imagine living in a country where our children are no longer being threatened by drug abuse,” says Bianca. “We can live in that society, but first we need to grant the police a universal right to perform random cavity checks on citizens. I honestly think that’s the key to winning our war on drugs.”

Public safety officials share her view. “The threat of the state rummaging through your internal organs has a deleterious effect on drug use,” says Dr. John LeJawn, who helped craft the law. “This is a scientific fact. If you live in constant fear of the state violating you in the most inappropriate ways, you’re much less likely to ever want to take drugs. A state of chronic fear inhibits human agency, which minimizes the risk of people violating laws. Bill 193 doesn’t go far enough, but it’s a good start. Quebec will be a much safer place once everyone is thoroughly terrified of the government."