News » Mixed Messages In Canada Over Marijuana Legalization

November 29, 2011 by Aaron Turpen

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The Canadian political landscape is as dazed and confused about marijuana as is that of the U.S. Four former Vancouver mayors and the current one came out this week to promote marijuana’s legalization in the Great White North. Current mayor Gregor Robertson sent a tweet saying “Good to see 4 Vancouver ex-mayors calling for end of cannabis prohibition. I agree, we need to be smart and tax/regulate.”

To that, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says not just “No” but “F@#$in Hell No” (I paraphrase). In a response to a question at a brief news conference Friday, the (sub)Prime Minister said “No, it will not happen under our government. We’re very concerned about the spread of drugs in the country and the damage it’s doing and as you know we have legislation before the House to crack down.”

Ironically, Harper was in Vancouver when he made those statements.

Meanwhile, the Stop the Violence Coalition, based in Vancouver (apparently the hot box for legalization in Canada), is working towards legalization anyway. It’s backed for the aforementioned four former mayors, former police officers, a judge, several leaders in the medical community, and British Columbia’s former chief coroner. Their contention is that legalization would stop most of the violence associated with cannabis sales and make pot less accessible to children.

An informal survey of Canadians by the Coalition found that most people oppose current marijuana laws. Newspaper and unscientific online surveys seem to agree with this notion. One survey on CBC.ca has 18,429 respondents (as of this writing) with 92.19% of them agreeing that marijuana should be legalized.

Like the American President, however, Canada’s Prime Minister has little interest in what the public thinks or what would be best for both the people of his nation and the government’s financial situation. Instead, he cares mostly about grandstanding and keeping the status quo so huge amounts of tax dollars can continue flowing into law enforcement to “combat drugs.”

I’m sure his buddy Obama and his boss the Queen are on his side.

Tags: Canada, legalization, legalize, marijuana