Pubdate: Fri, 26 Jul 2013
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2013 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Chris Selley

WEED OUT THE FLAWED LAWS

Marijuana Stance Could Be Winner for Trudeau

I'm not sure why it isn't bigger news, at time of writing, that 
Justin Trudeau now publicly supports the legalization of marijuana. 
(He actually publicly supported it in February, Mr. Trudeau's adviser 
Gerald Butts pointed out on Twitter, but somehow it was even smaller 
news then.) He had already found his way to supporting 
decriminalization, and had previously articulated the case for 
legalization. But he has now adopted that case and expressly 
repudiated decriminalization.

"I'm actually not in favour of decriminalizing cannabis," he told an 
audience in Kelowna, B.C., this week (though later, in one of his 
trademarked "clarifications," he said he might support 
decriminalization as well). "Tax it, regulate. It's one of the only 
ways to keep it out of the hands of our kids because the current war 
on drugs, the current model is not working. We have to use evidence 
and science to make sure we're moving forward on that."

We've never seen a major federal party leader out on this limb. NDP 
leader Tom Mulcair is for decriminalization, as Jack Layton was. The 
Paul Martin Liberals couldn't even pull that off - I'm not convinced 
they ever really intended to - and since then, they've had a leader 
who once advised high school students not to "park your life at the 
end of a marijuana cigarette." Neither party's 2011 election platform 
mentioned illicit drugs at all. (The Greens support legalization.) 
And the Conservatives, naturally, promised to "crack down on 
organized drug crime."

There is no guarantee we'll find legalization in Mr. Trudeau's 2015 
platform, of course, but he might as well put it in there. I can 
already see the Conservative attack ads. And it could prove to be an 
all-too rare twofer: A common-sense policy (if not an 
earth-shattering one) that's also a political winner, providing that 
Mr. Trudeau is willing to make the pitch: Polls show that support for 
change is split between legalizers and decriminalizers, but support 
for the status quo is rare indeed. Some will scoff at Mr. Trudeau's 
"think of the children" approach to the issue. It's certainly not the 
best case on the evidence. Regulation doesn't always keep booze and 
cigarettes away from kids, now does it? Still, it's tough to imagine 
that selling marijuana at government-licensed stores would make it 
easier for children to obtain it. A UNICEF report released in April 
found that 4% of children aged 11, 13 and 15 reported smoking 
cigarettes "at least once a week"; 16% re! ported having been drunk 
on at least two occasions; and fully 29% reported "having used 
cannabis in the last 12 months."

Politically speaking, those numbers give Mr. Trudeau an angle of 
attack at the Conservative record. On kids smoking pot, Canada ranks 
29th best in the UNICEF report, which is to say last among "rich" 
nations. (We're 18th best on alcohol, third best on smoking.) 
Countries whose children smoke weed less frequently include 
decriminalized or legalized jurisdictions such as the Netherlands 
(17%), Estonia (15%) and Belgium (16%).

Stephen Harper's Conservatives are all too eager to own Canada's low 
crime rate. Why shouldn't they own the stratospheric level of 
marijuana consumption among Canadian children?

To be fair, restrictive jurisdictions such as Sweden (5.5%), Norway 
(4.6%) and Iceland (7%) lead the way. But their politicians can 
plausibly claim that these restrictions are working. Our politicians 
cannot possibly - or, they can, but any halfway effective debater or 
adman should be able to make them look like imbeciles. Last year Mr. 
Harper himself admitted that "the current approach [to the War on 
Drugs] is not working." Yet this is a man whose government introduced 
a six-month mandatory minimum sentence for growing more than five 
marijuana plants and offering a friend a puff.

I refuse to believe that Mr. Harper doesn't realize, at some level, 
the insanity of this approach. Anyone with a rudimentary 
understanding of economics can see its negative effects: It restricts 
production, distribution and profit to criminals willing to take the 
risk, thereby inviting (successfully) all the ills that accompany 
organized crime, while filling the market - and oh lord, 29% of our 
children's lungs! - with an untested and largely unknown product.

Any politician who can't articulate a better approach is in the wrong 
game. Give it a whirl, Mr. Trudeau.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom