Pubdate: Sat, 15 Aug 2015
Source: Standard, The (St. Catharines, CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 St. Catharines Standard
Contact: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/letters
Website: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/676
Author: Grant LaFleche,
Page: A5

FUSS OVER POT MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

The warnings came regularly. On the mornings of the first Monday of
the month to be exact, issued through the crackling wall mounted
speakers of my high school's laughably terrible intercom system.

That was the day the school's chaplain - a tiny, quiet man who spent
as much time helping an actual leper colony in the Philippines as he
did working with students - would read his sermon. And as often as
not, Father Vincent Lu would warn us of the danger of addictive gateways.

"You go to a party and your friend says 'Have a beer'," Father Lu
would say. "So you have a beer. Soon you are addicted."

One beer opens one to a legion of dangers - illicit drug use, violence
and sex. So we had best stay away!

I didn't buy into Catholic theology, but I always respected the padre,
particularly his work with the poor and forgotten. But his idea that
exposure to one potentially addictive substance would trigger a
lifetime of suffering was laughable even then.

One beer, one cigarette or even one joint does not automatically spell
doom for a person or society.

And yet, when asked this week about decriminalizing marijuana, some
local federal candidates sounded an awful lot like Father Lu.

St. Catharines Tory incumbent Rick Dykstra says marijuana is a
dangerous and addictive drug. So it should remain illegal. The
Conservative narrative around pot centres upon the notion of its
extreme danger, as though it exists on the same level as heroin or
cocaine.

(It doesn't.) It must remain illegal to prevent chaos.

Niagara's NDP incumbent, Malcolm Allen, while less alarmist about it
than Dykstra, also thinks legalization is going to an extreme.

Both think a new enforcement scheme to reduce penalties to spare the
costs on our courts is a possibility. But legalization? Have you lost
your mind? Think about the children!

Ironically, I doubt any of these candidates would speak the same away
of two drugs that marijuana is rather akin to - cigarettes and alcohol.

We won't see candidates float the idea of banning cigarettes despite
its well documented addictive effects and cancerous health impacts.
Alcoholism, I would argue, is a vastly more serious problem in this
country than marijuana use. But I doubt we'll hear Dykstra or Allen
talk about making booze illegal.

The reason, of course, is simple. We tried to outlaw booze once and
all that did was create income for the mob. Marijuana is, for the most
part, illegally produced and sold, and its revenue goes into the
pockets of criminals. That won't change until we fundamentally alter
how we deal with it.

True, penalties for possessing a small amount of pot have been
reduced, but the fact is our entire relationship with the drug is
hilariously outmoded. Politicians mostly want the issue to go away and
when it is raised, they mostly use it as an excuse for faux moral outrage.

Instead of treating it the same as cigarettes and alcohol - regulating
and taxing it and thereby cutting criminals off from revenue - we do
this silly dance where it is legal-ish for medical use, but not for
anyone else.

Although technically illicit, pot's use is nearly akin to legal drugs
of recreation and the country isn't anywhere near close to turning
into a massive flop house filled with smelly addicts jonesing for a
bag of Doritos.

I haven't been impressed, on the whole, with the Liberal campaign thus
far but at least St. Catharines candidate Chris Bittle is on the side
of common sense on this issue, advocating legalization and regulation.

Honestly though, none of this really matters in the context of the
election.

Certainly, the fate of these candidates will not turn upon their view
of marijuana. The formation of the next government will not hinge upon
the legalization debate.

It's just one of those issues that show how far our politics is
divorced from common sense. And it does make me wonder if our would-be
leaders cannot come to grips with something this simple, how well will
they fair with issues of real importance and complexity?
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MAP posted-by: Matt