Stephen Harper miscalculated the cannabis issue, and this was the wedge Justin Trudeau used to get him on the defensive.
It worked, and, while Harper sounded infinitely dumb trying to campaign against a plant that everyone knows is benign and medical, Trudeau rode the popularity contest to power.
Now, legalizing should be simple – take it out the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
But the Liberals have said the process could take from 30 days to two years.
This isn’t surprising since we’re not dealing with a “liberal” government in the traditional sense of the word.
That is, one that respects the voluntary associations and contractual exchanges of individuals in a free civil society.
We’re long past those days.
This is an interventionist big government and the reason legalization could take two years is because the Liberals want to ensure the process benefits them and the corporate cronies who control them.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s economics it’s called rent-seeking.
The chief financial officer of the Liberal Party sits on the board of directors of licensed producers Aurora Cannabis Inc and co-founded licensed producer Tweed.
It’s not inconceivable to imagine Chuck Rifici is going to have more sway over legalization regulations than your average, middle-class toker.
Justin’s reasons for legalization had to do with “protecting children” and ensuring that adults don’t become criminals for simple possession – yet he remained silent on the self-ownership issue.
And that is the only argument against prohibition.
Not that it is socially or economically destructive, but that it denies an individual’s basic liberty as a human being.
The social and economic consequences of ignoring self-ownership are always destructive, whether it’s cannabis prohibition or gun ownership.
For Justin to rant and rave about the children is to attack the branch and ignore the root.
Not identifying the actual problem will result in a defective legalization scheme where people who fall outside of the new regulatory framework will face, “new, stronger laws, to punish [them] more severely.”
Again, not conspiracy. It was in the Liberal election platform.
And even among legalization activists – the calls for treating cannabis like alcohol and tobacco is not seeing the forest for the trees.
How effective is the wine model in BC? Hint: not very.
The state lied about cannabis, jailed people, destroyed families, and violated private property to outlaw a plant they had no realistic hope of ever eradicating.
And now they have the audacity to say only they can regulate cannabis effectively?
Well, at least now we can get back to criticizing the government instead of thinking the problem was that we had the wrong people in charge.