Now that prohibition doesn’t have a leg to stand on, the mantra has become about the children.
When Dana Larsen sent out a gram of cannabis, along with his new book, to federal Liberal MPs, many recoiled with horror. Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry told the media that she was concerned children could have accessed the package.
I asked Dana what he thought about her statement. He called it “silly.”
“No youth are hanging out at MPs’ mailboxes, hoping to intercept cannabis that might have been sent in the mail,” he said.
Why are politicians always appealing to emotion? The “think of the children” argument is a logical fallacy.
Besides, putting the state in charge of alcohol sales and distribution (even as a mere regulator) hasn’t deterred underage drinking, since “19-years-old” is an arbitrary standard.
Experimenting with mind-altering substances is a decision an individual makes, and if he or she is incapable of fully functional reasoning (and I know many adults that fall into this category) then a parent, friend, or guardian steps in.
Giving the state this guardian protection power is the same misguided reasoning that led to prohibition in the first place. That coercive power will somehow change the attitudes and values of teenagers and adults alike.
Human beings without fully developed brains will always try out cannabis, alcohol, nicotine, or any number of substances. Asking for more centralized state power to prevent this is both erroneous and dangerous.
Alcohol is well-known for its negative health effects.
Although much information out there has been overblown by the same neo-prohibitionists that want cannabis heavily taxed and regulated, alcohol is responsible for a wide range of ill-effects that go beyond mental and physical exhaustion of one’s body.
Yet, certain parts of Canada have private alcohol retailers, private brewers, and private distributors. People can, and do, brew their own beer at home.
Is underage drinking a major social issue in provinces where alcohol sales are less regulated (like Quebec or Alberta) compared to those where it is completely controlled by the government and a crony-capitalist oligopoly (such as Ontario)? Of course not!
Some kids love drinking, and they’ll do it regardless of who is in charge.
Cannabis is even safer with none of the slow-kill effects of alcohol or nicotine.
When Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, the Canadian media starting demonizing kids and teenagers as somehow incapable of reason.
As if these children’s parents or guardians don’t exist, or that children don’t have any rights until they reach a certain age, and are thus merely wards of the state.
Teenagers, or as I like to call them, rational individuals with developing minds, apparently run the risk of destroying their brains with cannabis.
That alone does not warrant a command-and-control cannabis legalization scheme.
But hold up.
Teens who smoke may have smaller brain volume in the amygdala region compared to those who never smoked, but the team doing the study concluded, by looking at the non-smoking siblings, that it’s probably genetic and environment factors “that predispose us to using marijuana that also contribute to variations in our brain volumes.”
Not only is the Liberal government appealing to emotion, they are misrepresenting the science. But even if the science was sound, they are undermining parental and guardian authority, and violating rights of both children and adults to achieve this end.
And what is the end? “Get rid of the goons,” of course!