The Liberals passed a motion back in January that said marijuana should be LEGALIZED. Rae stated that he did not support the motion -- but accepts it. Not much more has been said since.
Enter Hedy Fry. She means well and I have no doubt that she supported the motion. However, she would not be my spokesperson of choice. Throughout the segment she used legalization and decriminalization interchangeably. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/20/pol-mulcair-position-on-marijuana-decriminalization.html There is a world of difference between the two. It is unforgivably sloppy to for any Liberal to confuse the two at this point in time. The Liberals support LEGALIZATION. The NDP supports DECRIMINALIZATION of possession. Get it right.
Two more points. One, keep the subject on marijuana and marijuana alone. Insite has nothing to do with wanting to legalize marijuana. Two, the Liberals need to change tactics. It is not enough to simply reference studies. The Liberals have to draw some conclusions and make arguments of their own. After all, take any subject you please; if there is a significant body of research about it, then it is stupidly easy to dig up dissenting opinion. It is asking way too much of your average to Canadian to have them dig up all the relevant body of work so that they can judge whether there is any consensus amongst the learned. They neither have the time or inclination.
The opponents of legalization have trotted out same lame arguments for years. Stomp on them. Do not leave it the experts to do so. The Liberals are entirely capable of makings such arguments and the public is entirely capable of understanding them. Liberals let me get you started. Here are some nice short sound bites.
Potent Point
1) Saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense.
2) If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Schizophrenia
There is no causation without correlation. There has been an astronomical increase in the number of pot smokers since the 1950s and no increase in the rate of schizophrenia whatsoever.
Gateway drug
Every time someone goes to buy marijuana they come into contact with criminal elements with access to other hard drugs. This is your gateway. When Holland legalized consumption and made it available in stores, heroin and cocaine use went down.
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2 comments:
"There is no causation without correlation. "
That statement is false. Say an increase in A causes an increase in B. But at the same time C is increasing and an increase in C causes a decrease in B. Then even though A is increasing, B could stay stable since, at the same time, C is increasing causing an offsetting effect on B.
Applied to your claim. Smoking pot could cause an increase in schizophrenia, but treatment may have improved since the 1950s, resulting in no change in the incidence of schizophrenia. I doubt this balance is the case in reality, but your argument is incorrect.
It would have to be a preventive measure and not a treatment in your example, but point taken.
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