Teen pot use is down. Does that mean Justin won’t legalize now?
After all, the Liberals are notorious for breaking campaign promises and a 12-year decline in cannabis use among young people just goes to show that hefty propaganda does wonders, just as we’ve seen with the tobacco industry, where cigarette smokers are essentially second-class citizens.
And since the Liberals only want to legalize cannabis because of “the children” (it’s got nothing to do with your self-ownership as a free, individual human being), this decline could be justification for more prohibitionary measures.
Of course, in the throne speech, the Liberal government did vow to “restrict and regulate” as well as tax, and I haven’t known any government to ever pass on new taxes.
If it wasn’t for the war on drugs and the money being made in prohibition, I’m sure cannabis would have been legalized long ago. But cops have families to feed and war is, as Randolph Bourne put it, the health of the state.
That’s why legalization is taking so long. Special interests and lobbying efforts from all sides. It actually makes political sense for the Liberals to drag their feet and get a feel for all sides of the debate before making their move.
Nevertheless, the “think of the children” fallacy is still front and centre for so-called “addiction experts” that blame drugs themselves instead of people’s relationship to them.
Dr. Philip Tibbo, director of the Nova Scotia Early Psychosis, questions whether adults under 25 should be allowed to buy legal cannabis.
Dr. Franco Vaccarino, a chairman of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), wants to know the THC content of legal cannabis.
“We owe it to ourselves to elevate the conversations,” says Franco.
“We owe it ourselves?” Where have I heard that argument before?
Oh right, the $1.2 trillion debt past, and current, politicians leave for “the children” they so fervently defend.
Regardless, Dr. Franco Vaccarino manages to hit a nail on its head.
“In this world of unprecedented access to information, it’s ironic that there’s so much misinformation.”
Of course, by “misinformation” he means the growing evidence that cannabis is a medicine that can slow tumour growth and act as an anti-depressant. Franco is worried about young people skipping out on college and university, possibly because they smoked a joint as a 16-year-old and realized what a scam post-secondary education is.
It’s ironic that someone, like Dr. Kim Corace of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, who is supposed to promote health and well-being, still clings to the idea that cannabis users are at a “greater risk of developing depression, and earlier.”
Dr. Corace is also concerned that young people “believe marijuana use is already legal,” which can be interpreted a couple ways.
Either young people don’t realize that just because Justin is Prime Minister doesn’t mean cannabis is automatically legal, or, unlikely but one can dream, young people realize that individuals are protected by natural laws — not state decree.
Cannabis prohibition may be legal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s lawful.
For if the state violates your person and property for a victimless crime like growing and consuming a plant, then who exactly is the criminal?