Pubdate: Fri, 23 Aug 2013
Source: Kamloops Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Kamloops Daily News
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/679
Author: Sylvie Paillard

TRUDEAU PANNED BY CONSERVATIVES FOR SMOKING POT

Mcleod: 'As a Member of Parliament He Shouldn't Be Breaking Those Laws'

Conservatives MPs across Canada are expressing their disdain for 
Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau after his public admission to 
smoking marijuana while holding elected office.

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Cathy McLeod added her voice to the 
chorus on Thursday.

"There are laws in place; if people don't believe them, there's a 
system and a process whereby you change them," she said. "Mr. Trudeau 
was very aware of the laws in place. I think as a member of 
Parliament he shouldn't be breaking those laws."

Trudeau laid out his past marijuana use in a lengthy interview and in 
an exchange with reporters Thursday in which he made no apologies.

He said he's smoked pot five or six times in his life - including 
three years ago during a backyard get-together - and never really 
liked it much.

Now that he's come clean about using pot, he said, he'd like to move 
on and talk about the hundreds of thousands of people who have a 
criminal record for it.

What's important, Trudeau said, is ending a marijuana prohibition 
policy that he says costs law enforcement $500 million a year and has 
left 475,000 people with criminal records since the Conservatives 
took office in 2006.

McLeod reiterated the Conservative Party's position that the medical 
marijuana laws, including production and distribution, need an 
overhaul. But that's the extent of it.

"Our government has repeatedly indicated that we have no intention of 
legalizing marijuana," she said.

Trudeau sought to shift the focus onto his policy of legalizing 
marijuana when asked by reporters about his drug use and whether it 
had been a mistake.

"No, it wasn't a mistake," Trudeau told journalists in Quebec City.

"I do not consume cannabis. I am not a big consumer at all. I tried 
it . . . . "I've never tried other types of hard drugs. I am not a 
consumer of marijuana but, yes, I've already tried it. I used it - 
maybe five or six times in my life."

He said he believes public opinion has moved on and he's confident 
that Canadians will judge him less harshly than his political opponents.

McLeod was non-committal when asked whether Trudeau's admission will 
hurt him politically.

"I think each person will judge it according to their own values and 
beliefs," she said.

Trudeau originally made the marijuana admission in a candid interview 
with the Huffington Post, in which he also revealed that his youngest 
brother, Michel, was charged with marijuana possession shortly before 
his 1998 death in an avalanche.

Trudeau said he was never the one among his group of friends to buy 
the weed and he last smoked marijuana about three years ago at his 
house in Montreal when his children were away.

Trudeau was elected to Parliament in 2008.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, asked about the admission Thursday, 
said Trudeau's actions "speak for themselves."

The prime minister has said he's never tried pot but attributes that 
to his asthma, which would make it painful to smoke anything 
including cigarettes.

The Huffington Post said the NDP leader's office confirmed that Tom 
Mulcair has smoked pot "but sent strongly worded emails refusing to 
say when he last used the drug or where he procured it."

Trudeau cracked a joke about it.

He said on Twitter that he had indeed made a mistake in being so open 
and was now coming under "vicious attacks" over his other admission 
in the Huffington Post interview: that he doesn't drink coffee.

More seriously, he said, he doesn't want children to use pot, which 
is why he plans to squash the black market and replace it with a 
highly regulated trade.

He was forced to admit, however, that in his early days in Parliament 
his private actions were inconsistent with the drug prohibition 
policies he espoused at the time.

"Yes," he replied, when asked whether he had done one thing and said 
another in the past. He said his beliefs on drug policy had changed over time.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom