Dr. Diane Kelsall, interim editor in chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, wrote an editorial criticizing Liberal Legalization.
Since I criticize Liberal Legalization quite regularly on this blog, I was interested to see what Dr. Kelsall wrote. To my surprise, she is opposed to the legislation for entirely different reasons than I am.
Dr. Kelsall thinks prohibition works. That’s essentially her argument.
According to the editorial, and I’m heavily paraphrasing here, Canadian youth lack parents, guidance counselors, or mentors. Canadian youth are at the mercy of the federal government.
Since Canadian teens are among the highest teen cannabis users in the Western world, Dr. Kelsall urges the Liberals to further restrict and regulate cannabis than they already have in Bill C-45.
Dr. Kelsall finds particular issue with the minimum age of 18. Since the brain hasn’t finished growing until age 25, she feels young adults should be denied the principle of self-ownership.
Some would call it a “right” or a fundamental freedom to do something with his or her own body. It’s the entire justification for cannabis legalization in the purist sense.
If Dr. Kelsall is right, and teenagers are just too fragile, why not raise everything to the age of 25? Driving, voting, drinking, gambling, student loans.
This is her central issue. Won’t somebody please think of the children. An appeal to emotion.
Dr. Kelsall’s editorial also suggests that people shouldn’t grow their own cannabis. She says private cultivation eases access for teenagers, and thus, no garden for you!
Dr. Kelsall also advises the Liberals to restrict high-potency strains. But if many Canadian teens smoke pot, shouldn’t we be having a pandemic of teens suffering from crippling psychosis?
Simply put, Kelsall does not understand economics. And it’s not because she’s already a doctor. I’m no economist but I understand the basic principles enough to realize:
1 — If you make cannabis sales illegal, you create a black market. This applies just as well to people under 25.
2 — Canadians already grow weed illegally and will continue doing so. Banning home cultivation is just continued prohibition and it won’t work.
3 — If you try to enforce THC limits, you will create a black market for high-potency weed.
4 — When human beings are self-aware and act in the world, they can eventually get their hands on whatever the fuck they want. When your 16, it may be weed, booze or under a girl’s shirt.
The best solution isn’t to coerce the cannabis industry in some post-modernist dogma about the benevolent state. If you want to save the children get them out of state-funded “public” schools. Defund the Universities.
Severely reduce the tax and regulatory burden of the state, demand the banks and the central bank cease engaging in monetary inflation, thereby returning a prosperous capital-based economy to the middle class, thereby creating the conditions where one parent doesn’t need to work.
There is a multitude of things we can do right now to better the life of Canada’s children and teens. Unnecessary restrictions on the cannabis industry are not one of them.