Marijuana and Schizophrenia: A prelude to a Conservative Talking point

This summer a meta analysis of all articles dealing with marijuana and schizophrenia was published in the Lancet. That same day a score of sensationalist headlines appeared. Maia Szalavitz of States at George Mason University put those headlines following into context.

“A 40% increase in risk sounds scary, and this was the risk linked to trying marijuana once, not to heavy use. To epidemiologists a 40% increase is not especially noteworthy-- they usually don’t find risk factors worth worrying about until the number hits at least 200% and some major journals won’t publish studies unless the risk is 300 or even 400%. The marijuana paper did find that heavy use increased risk by 200-300%, but that’s hardly as sexy as try marijuana once, increase your risk of schizophrenia by nearly half!

By contrast, one study found that alcohol has been found to increase the risk of psychosis by 800% for men and 300% for women.

http://www.stats.org/stories/2007/will_one_joint_schizoid_july30_07.htm

Speaking of correlation that is precisely what epidemiological studies have consisted failed to show and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/MJScience.html Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/MJScience.html and Oxford’s Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. http://www.stats.org/stories/2007/will_one_joint_schizoid_july30_07.htm According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,

"If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the '50s,"

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/09/19/reefer_madness/index.html

As Szalavitz notes, this is marked contrast to what happened with cigarette consumption and lung cancer. “

When cigarette smoking barreled through the population, lung cancer rose in parallel; when smoking rates fell, lung cancer rates fell.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/reefer-inanity-never-tru_b_58353.html

Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia per say but rather that it causes the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown’s dismay, this is opinion of Dr Iddon.

Dr Iddon, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse [Britain], said the study did not convince him it was time to return cannabis to class B. "I don't think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might - possibly for genetic reasons - trigger psychosis at an earlier age." The MP, who is also a member of the science and technology select committee, said there was a danger of criminalising "hundreds of thousands of young people" if the status of the drug was changed. "If Gordon Brown changes the class of the drug, it won't be evidence-based but for political reasons," he said.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2136479,00.html

Canadians want to dump the Monarchy and so should the Liberals

I have no time for monarchy and so the following warms my heart.


"Under the terms of the Canadian Constitution, Queen Elizabeth II holds the position of Canada’s head of state. Would you support or oppose Canada ending its formal ties to the British monarchy?

Support
53%

Oppose
35%

Not sure
12%"

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/28442/half_of_canadians_would_cut_ties_to_monarchy

Media Coverage: The Liberals Have a Choice; Controversial Policy or Internal Strife.

Dogged by internal strife and haunted by the sponsorship scandal the Liberals badly need to change the channel and the only way of doing this is introduce controversial legislation. Talk of Dion being mischaracterized in Quebec is not going to interest the media for very long. There is a policy void at the center of the Liberal party and if the party does nothing to correct the situation the media will successfully define the Liberals as being a divided party with no clear direction or focus.

The party has long understand the importance of having ideological enemies, whether that the Bush administration or Canadian social conservatives. However, the party has always thought it could wage such ideological wars on the cheap. It could talk a good game, but it thought need not follow through with policy. It was never an entirely successful approach and since Stephen Harper took over the party the law of diminishing returns as set in. Indeed, Harper has all but put a stop to nut bars, such as, Gallant waxing poetic on issues near and dear to social conservatives and he has not openly courted the social conservatives in the way that he did before becoming PM.

I find the Liberal’s half ass approach baffling. SSM and the Liberal decision to stay out of Iraq were major Liberal victories and perhaps the only two of the last 4 years. If the Liberals are to avoid being defined by their own bickering, they have no choice but to goad social conservatives and or the Bush administration into open warfare and the only way of doing that is propose policies that neither likes. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.

As I have said repeatedly, if the Liberals promise to legalize marijuana, the social conservatives and the Bush administration will bite and Harper will be at the mercy of these two groups. The added bonus is if Dion promises to legalize marijuana, thereby imperiling the US War on Drugs, he will not lack for name recognition. Not only will Canadians know who he is, so too will Americans, and good number of Europeans and Australians.

Bob Rae on Federal Spending Powers

Bob Rae has a piece about Federal spending powers in today’s Globe and Mail. I think this approach has some potential, but the Liberals badly need to add flesh to what is still a bare bones idea. Indeed the programs and initiatives that Rae mentions are either still in planning stages or are recycled “beer and popcorn”.

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20071001/CORAE01/Headlines/headdex/headdexComment/2/2/7/

Canadians who want their federal government to support early childhood education, decent housing, cities that work, a healthy environment, new initiatives in health care, more mobility for students, better research and stronger universities should be appalled at this emasculation.

The Liberal’s early childhood education program is never going to be the vote getter they hope it be so long as it remains something far less than a universal program. After all, the more the Liberals talked up the desperate need for more child care the more inadequate and lackluster their proposal appeared and the more attractive the Conservatives universal baby bonus appeared. Many voters figured that a $1200 bird in your hand is better than 15% chance of nailing two in the bush.

I also think Rae and other Liberals are going about this backwards. The Liberals should first propose what is bound to be a popular universal program (e.g., public dental care) that would be administered by the provinces and note how Harper’s proposal to emasculate the Federal government would prevent such a program and others like it from being implemented. In politics it always best to go from the specific to general than from general to specific. That is why it is nearly impossible to talk about violent crime with any intelligence. The starting point is always going to be some violent crime. Lastly, some Canadians, particularly in Quebec, are not likely to favor everything on the list and may be willing to sacrifice a particular federal program if it means that Federal government will stay out of others.

Harper says Canada "Back": More Dictation at 11

After Canada failed to join the coalition of willing Harper had this to say. “Canada remains alienated from its allies, shut out of the reconstruction process to some degree, unable to influence events. There is no upside to the position Canada took.” On Tuesday, Harper trumiphally announced that Canada is “back and no longer alienated from its coalition partner(s).” Harper vowed that so long as he was PM, Canada will have an “aggressive” foreign policy. That is to say as aggressive as the US wants him to be .

Conservatives Announce New Election Slogan and Unveil Accompanying Poster

The Buck Stops Here

The Globe and Mail's Conservative Stenographers

I hope The Conservatives are paying Bill Curry and Tenille Bongoguore well for writing the most recent Conservative press release. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070925.wharpersp0925/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

Below part of Conservative new release and part of Curry and Bongoguore Conservative news release in Globe and Mail. Can you see the difference tone? I can’t see the difference tone? Maybe that is why the Conservatives have yet to issue a news release today. Curry and Tenille it seems already beat them to the punch.

“In a keynote address at the APEC Australia 2007 Business Summit today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told more than 200 business and political leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific countries that Canada’s balanced approach to reversing global warming is a model for the next international protocol on climate change.

“The growing menace of climate change is one of the most important public policy challenges of our time,” Prime Minister Harper said. “For at least a decade most Governments, including Canada’s Government, paid lip service to the issue because they were unwilling to tell the public that reducing carbon emissions will have real economic costs. We need to take action. We owe it to future generations, just as we owe them a strong and secure economic future.”

The key to a practical, realistic and effective global action plan on climate change, Prime Minister Harper said, is striking a balance between sustainable economic growth and careful environmental stewardship. The new Canadian strategy involves regulating emissions for the first time while also investing in new clean energy technologies and establishing a carbon emissions trading market that will give business the incentive to run cleaner, greener operations.

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1091/87117

Canada back in middle on world stage, Harper says

Mr. Harper laid out his government's approach to foreign policy in extensive detail Tuesday. Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Mr. Harper said he prefers taking concrete action as opposed to unsubstantiated rhetoric.

“Success requires middle powers who can step up to the plate to do their part,” Mr. Harper said, according to a written version of Tuesday's speech.

“Success demands governments who are willing to assume responsibilities, seek practical, do-able solutions to problems and who have a voice and influence in global affairs because they lead, not by lecturing, but by example.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to the press in New York earlier this week. (Reuters)
PM addresses Council on Foreign Relations on Canada's role on the global stage
Prime Minister Stephen Harper pushed for a 'flexible, balanced' approach to global warming Monday. Mr. Harper said the United States can't go it alone in the world and needs other countries like Canada to do their part.

“Take Afghanistan as an example,” Mr. Harper said. “Canada did not hesitate, a little more than six years ago, when terrorists hit this great city and Washington, D.C.

“The United Nations Security Council authorized military action to remove the Taliban regime, and Canada was there, immediately.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070925.wharpersp0925/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

Liberal Blogs and the Next Election

By and large, the critics are right. Blogs are largely parasitic. The MSM writes the stories and the blogsephere critiques and fact checks them. The reasons are simple. Bloggers lack the connections, resources and training of professional reporters. More importantly reporters get paid for what they do and bloggers, with the exception, of a very select few are not able to make a living off what they have written. As a result, bloggers are not able to devote nearly as much time as reporters can and they are seldom able to go into the field and talk to sources. All that being said, what the blogsephere does, it does very well. There are many more bloggers than reporters and what an individual blogger can not accomplish is sure to be accomplished by the blogsephere as a whole.

You Tube and similar services threatens to turn this parasitic relationship during election time on its head. You see, storylines determine by and large what is and what is not newsworthy and this is especially so during the course of an election. News agencies send reporters to seek confirmation of an unstated narrative or to answer a question posed by the media. For example, following the Liberals January collapse in the polls the media sought confirmation of the Liberal collapse everywhere. Another example is the media attempted to answer this question: Can Stephen Harper, as the media very much expected, keep his MPs on message and from saying anything controversial? Where bloggers come in is that knowing the storylines ahead of times the blogging community can beat the MSM to the punch. This is not that difficult. Canada is a small media market and with the huge number of cutbacks at the major news organizations as well as the smaller ones there are not nearly enough reporters to attend every all candidate’s debate and campaign rally out there. There are, however, more than enough bloggers to document these events using nothing more than a digital camera. There is no reason why Rob Anders, Gallant and Day’s every move can not be captured forever. Just as importantly, the growth of online communities devoted to the various political parties promises solve another problem, viz., disseminating what has been documented. Prior to the growth of these interested communities, the problem was that not only did one have to document whatever it was one wanted documented one also had to get MSM to publicize the event in question and they were not always willing to do so. Such a problem happened to me during the last election. I was able to ascertain that the Conservative candidate in my riding had told a gym full of high school students that she “makes an effort to smile at brown people”. The media was notified, numerous witnesses made available including the teacher and principle, but the media failed to report. I needed the reputation of the MSM to move the story forward and so the story died there. Now, I do not mean to suggest that should something similar happen during the next campaign that the result would be different. My point is that if such an event were to be documented using some kind of video technology and placed in the right part of the web the size and readership of these online communities would force the MSM into picking the story up. The blogsephere could potentially cause them to loose control of storylines of their makings. For example, the media was well on its way to answering the aforementioned Stephen Harper question in the affirmative. However, had the blogsephere been able to substantiate some of the rumors to the contrary they would have been forced, like it or not, to go back on what they had written. Paul Wells notes the potential of such technology and communities. “YouTube destroyed a political career last autumn when the online video site became the place to see footage of the Virginia Republican senator George Allen tossing a bizarre insult -- "macaca" -- at a Democratic campaign worker of East Indian descent.” http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/columnists/article.jsp?content=20070122_139453_139453 However, as Conservatives Rondo, “the fact’s don’t matter”, Thomas http://www.trailervision.com/trailer.php?id=166 and Randy White http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/03/06/white050306.html can attest, the potential of such technology should have been apparent to Canadian politicians long before George Allen downfall.

Another way in which the Liberals can take advantage of the blogsephere is that they can use Lib blogs as a de facto secondary war room -- a poorer but not altogether insubstantial cousin. The Liberals lack the resources and the manpower to compete with the Conservatives during the next election. The blogsephere could help the Liberals narrow the gap. How? Well, they could do so in a rather straight forward manner. The party could use the blogsephere to help disseminate its message. This is good as far it goes, but there are other ways that hold more potential. For example, the party could take advantage of the creative potential of the blogsephere as a whole and develop talking points from chewed over ideas in the blogsephere. Failing that, the blogsephere as a whole can at times be quite the opposition researcher. Finally, bloggers can do and say things that political parties can not. This looks to be particularly relevant in any campaign were Afghanistan and Global warming are likely to take center stage. The Liberals are hamstrung by their own record, but liberal bloggers are free to run rough shod over Conservative talking points that might otherwise lead to questioning about the Liberal record if the same were to be said by the party.

In order for the party to effectively utilize the blogsephere, and Lib blogs in particular, the Liberals are going have go out of its way to draw attention to it and raise its profile. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways, but two come readily to mind. By leaking first to the blogs, a la Stephen Taylor, and later to the media the Liberals can draw media attention to the blogsephere and particular blogs. The same thing can be achieved by granting interviews to selected bloggers.

Conservative Green House Gas Intensity Plan: The Emperor has no Clothes

Companies will be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 18 percent per unit of production over the next three years. Each year after that, industry will have to achieve a further two percent improvement in emission intensity.Thanks to these and other measures, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions from all sources will begin to decline in absolute terms as early as 2010.Our plan will reduce Canada’s total emissions, relative to 2006 levels, 20 percent by 2020 and 60-70 percent by 2050, but note that basing early targets on emission intensity will allow us to square effective environmental action with the reality that Canada has a growing population and growing economic output.

Our plan will reduce Canada’s total emissions, relative to 2006 levels, 20 percent by 2020 and 60-70 percent by 2050, but note that basing early targets on emission intensity will allow us to square effective environmental action with the reality that Canada has a growing population and growing economic output.

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1004/87147


GHG Intensity has been going down an average 2% a year since 1996. http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2005/images/fig2_e.gif Meanwhile GHG emissions went up an average of 1.33% during that same time period. At that rate a 78% reduction in green house intensity would leave Canada in 2050 63.7% above what is it is in 2011!

To the Media

You should note two things.

1) GHG Intensity has been going down an average of 2% a year since 1996 well all the while GHG emissions have gone up 25%. In other words, proposing that countries set intensity based intensity emission targets that they are bound to meet anyway and which will not only fail to reduce GHG emissions but allow them to continue to go up is not a model for anything. It is political cover for those wanting to nothing.

2) It was the Bush administration that first championed emission intensity "targets" and this was only later picked up by Harper. So do not let Harper pass off an old Republican idea as a new Conservative one. An old Bush talking point is not a “bridge” to Bush.

Policy Now

The Liberals do not have the luxury waiting until an election campaign to unveil new policy. They have to stop the bleeding and the only way of doing is come up with policies that will restore Canadians interest in the party. Besides, election campaigns are unpredictable and bold new policy is just as likely to get dismissed as an act of desperation (e.g., the Liberals proposal to ban hand guns) as it is to be celebrated. Two other points: 1) The blizzard of policy proposals unleashed by all parties becomes like white noise after a while. 2) some policies need time to mature. Such was the case with SSM. As I have said time and again, based on what the polls said the policy was clear looser. The country might have been spilt, but likely voters where not. The older one is the more likely one was to vote and to oppose SSM. The success of policy lay in the fact that pundits, academics and even bloggers ran rough shod over the Conservative position and Conservatives sustained a good deal of collateral damage. Intellectually, morally and legally bankrupt, the critics ground down the Conservative position to there was nothing left but stinking carcass of lies, obfuscations and bigotry.

Dion's image problem is Really Just a Policy One.

"Dion admits he's had problems as leader, so he's promising to explain himself better, stop sounding like an academic and speak more from the heart."

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20070920%2fdion_personable_070920

They are going to Gore him. They have it all wrong. He should stop trying to “speak form the heart” and start sounding more like an academic. As for being able to explain himself, he would have a much easier time if the Liberal party developed coherent policies that flowed from a set of core principles and not from focus groups, polls and worst of all what Paul Martin did. If the Liberals take the time to develop a clear policy platform, Dion’s “image problem” will all but disappear.

In particular the Liberals need to lay out a substantive critique of the merits of the Afghan mission. Right now their demand that Canada end its combat mission in February 2009 is free floating. It needs to be tethered to a critique of the mission. Worse I am suspicious that the party is playing semantics and is willing to sanction a deal with the Conservatives that would see Canadian troops stay in Kandahar, but not in a non combat role, as if this is distinction with difference. The party should note that should it sanction a longer stay in Kandahar, in no matter what role, the party base will not forgive them.

Update: CTV was wrong; it one thing to challenge an image of oneself that is not accurate and it quite another vow to be more warm and fuzzy and less "academic". I still hold to thrust of what I said though. The main obstacle is not Dion's image, but a lack of policy.

Gerard Kennedy on Politics with Don Newman

I watched Gerard Kennedy on Politics with Don Newman. http://www.cbc.ca/politics/ today. The thrust of what Kennedy was saying was bang on, but he sounded a little harassed at times. Kennedy acknowledged that the party has not regained the trust of Quebecers, that the party has to under go a period of renewal and that much more than a fresh coat of paint is needed. Kennedy comments were in marked contrast to what Dion was saying in Crosby Ontario. Dion did acknowledge the results and took responsibility for them, but this was tempered by his frequently mentioning how “great” the Liberal Party is and how it will win the next election. Somber realism is much better sell than fake optimism.

As for the comments of former John Turner front man Ray Heard earlier in show, you can give them a miss. The comments of David Herle the day before were much more interesting. Speaking of the Tuesday show, Big City Lib and Red Tory were mentioned.

Maple Three Makes the News: Toronto Star

Toronto Star Susan Delacourt mentioned my blog yesterday. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/257672

“Criticism appeared to become more vocal after Dion appeared on CBC TV last week, in an interview with Peter Mansbridge, and failed to impress some Liberals.

"The more I see of him the more I fear the prospect of a (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper majority," a self-styled "progressive" named Koby posted on a Liberal blog called Maple Three. Around Ottawa, even Liberals who are supportive of Dion acknowledged it wasn't the leader's finest hour – he seemed ill at ease and ill-prepared.

The post in question is this one.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/09/dions-cbc-interview-thoughts.html

Liberals one Step Behind the Times

During the 2004 election campaign I told Don Bell, now the MP for North Vancouver, that I thought that Liberals had picked the wrong time to call an election. I told him that Martin should have waited until the fall and time the election to correspond with the US election. He agreed, but was less enthusiastic as to why I thought so. I thought the Liberal campaign should be centered around equating Bush and Harper.

Martin did end up running such a campaign, but he was an election too late. He ran the campaign he should have run in 2004 in 2006. However, by December 2006 the Bush Administration was damaged goods. Katrina had rendered the Bush administration ideologically impotent. The successful foreign policy critique of the White House, viz., that it was incompetent, become a successful global critique of the administration. Harper recognized the folly of getting to close to Bush and in a letter printed in the Washington Times denied the assertion of a Washington Times columnist that a Conservative government would be a de facto extension of the Republican Party. With no new policy initiatives that would show Bush and Harper to be of the same ideological ink, the Liberal campaign fell flat on its face. To make matters worse, the Liberals help neutralized the one issue that dogged Harper in the early parts of the campaign, viz., SSM, by promising to put a lock box around the notwithstanding clause. After that, the focus was no longer Harper’s legally morally and intellectual bankrupt stand on SSM, but was rather whether it was ever permissible to use the notwithstanding clause.

The Liberals seemed to have again missed the boat. The Liberals have yet to grasp in ways the other party’s have that the focus of Quebec politics has changed and that this requires that the party change accordingly. The Conservatives have successfully revived Mulroney’s soft separatism and Layton has realized that ideologically speaking Montreal is fertile territory. The Liberals have repeatedly failed to meet the NDP’s ideological challenge and have as of yet failed, although there are rumblings to the contrary, that they will seek to capitalize on the rest of the country’s distaste for Quebec pandering. In particular, Dion has yet to offer a substantive critique of the Afghan mission. Saying that he would end the combat mission in Afghanistan in February 2009 is not reason for ending the mission.

Conservatives on the Verge of a Majority

I will repeat what I said before the by-elections. "The Conservatives are poised to pick up a lot of seats in Quebec meaning they will only have to pick up a few more suburban seats in BC and Ontario to win a small majority."

Liberal Party: The Party Canada Forgot

The days of pumping out middle of the road, offend no one, please no one, interest no one, policies that are utterly incoherent at their core because they are designed to appeal to both sides of any political divide must come to end.

The Liberals are not going to build a grass roots movement unless they are willing to step on some toes and offend different groups, especially social conservatives, from time to time. They are not going to attract anyone by trying to be all things to all people. Canadians feel no loyalty to the party and quite frankly the Liberals bore most of them silly. This is a party without imagination, conviction or courage. Unwilling to consider talking points yet alone policy not yet sanctioned by focus groups or pollsters, it has become the de facto party of the status quo. Yesterday mores and yesterdays values are today’s Liberal policy.

The Liberals must seek out controversy rather than run from it. They must do more than just broach issues (e.g., poverty); they must propose readily understandable policies that cut to heart of various hot button issues and they can not wait for an election to do so. They must trot out these policies as soon as possible. They can not afford to slave away in obscurity while the Conservatives dominant the headlines. They can not afford to be merely reactive. They must seize the initiative.

The following are just the kind of policies that will put the Party back on the map.

1) Propose mandating 4 weeks vacation a year

2) Propose including dental care as part of health air

3) Propose Legalizing euthanasia

4) Propose Legalizing marijuana

Time to press the panic Button

The Liberal Party is so positively timid it drives me to distraction. The Party brass is delusional if they think they can go into the next election armed with little more than the idiotic Atlantic Accord, anger over income trusts, a mixed Afghan and environmental record and rhetoric about poverty and the economy. If that is what they choose to fight on, then Harper will end up with a majority. On that note, far too many Liberal bloggers have convinced themselves that things are really not that bad. They are that bad. The Conservatives are poised to pick up a lot of seats in Quebec meaning they will only have to pick up a few more suburban seats in BC and Ontario to win a small majority.

The party must embrace universality and controversy, least the Canadian public become so bored and disenchanted with them that the forget the party altogether.

Dion's CBC Interview: Thoughts

Dion was on the CBC tonight. The more I see of him the more I fear the prospect of a Harper majority. His English has improved, but not nearly enough. His choice of idioms is still not good, his accent is still thick, and the language barrier greatly impairs his ability to articulate his thoughts. His vocabulary, for example, is not what one would expect from someone holding a PHD.

Dion, as Andrew Coyne rightly said, in the At Issue panel that followed, has an aura of authenticity about him and he comes off as a pleasant individual. That said, the Liberals are not going to win a campaign on the strength of Dion’s personality. He is not a good retail politician. He is not Bob Rae. He looked lost trying to come up with a pleasing job interview type reason for why his personal popularity numbers are so pathetically low, especially in Quebec. He fumbled the first part of answer before recovering to say that this is problem shared by many new opposition leaders. I thought the question unfair, by the way. Besides, it was going to yield an insightful response.

His answer to Mansbridge’s question about why he had not been to Afghanistan yet was worse. It was quite simply feeble. Dion answer in a nut shell was that he has been busy. I was hopping that he would undercut Mansbridge’s dubious assumption that only those having gone to Afghanistan are fully qualified to pass judgment on the issue. Dion should have shot back that spending tens of thousands of dollars to stage a photo op in Afghanistan hardly qualifies as field research. Such staged visits certainly have not helped Rumsfeld, Bush or Cheney understand the Iraq War any better. The same goes Harper and Afghanistan.

Mansbridge later raised the issue of whether Dion has been over managed and mentioned Dion has complained as much. The panelists agreed and delighted in Mansbridge’s Paul Martin analogy. Mansbridge said that towards the end of his term as PM Paul Martin frequently looked as if the was not quite there and that the answers he gave seemed to be not his own but taken from a script. The bit about Martin was funny and I certainly agree, but Al Gore is far better example. The scripted focused group Gore was insultingly inauthentic. Al Gore is much more likeable when he is playing himself. It is height of irony that such a horrible actor should reach personal popularity heights by being featured in a movie. I am not sure Dion is the second coming of Gore, but he is a hell of lot more compelling personality bare knuckle fighting with separatists then he is pretending to be just a guy you would hopefully want to have a beer with and shoot the shit.

There was no major disagreements about where Dion is and where he should go amongst the panelists. All came to same conclusions. The Liberals are not ready for an election and it was foolish of Dion to suggest that he would bring the government down over the Throne Speech. Dion has come up with clear policies if the Liberals are to have any chance. Opposing everything the Conservatives do, whether it be supporting ridiculous stupid equalization formulas such as the Atlantic Accord, or expressing their desire to revisit the income trust thing, is getting the Liberals nowhere.

Hats off to Harper for voting against UN Idiocy

Canada, US, New Zealand and Australia voting against the following UN motion:

"Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired."

Good for them.

Liberals Need to Rediscover Universality

The Liberals need to rediscover universality. Under Mulroney and Chrétien universality died as Stephen Harper duly and happily noted in 1994.

"Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy…These achievements are due in part to the Reform Party.”

Under Martin the Liberals did rediscover universality again – well sort of. They promised to implement a “universal” early childhood education program that would in drips in drabs grow bigger over literally decades with no time line as to when the program would become truly universal. The more the Liberals talked up the need for more child care the more inadequate and lackluster their proposal appeared. Needless to say, piece meal universality is no universality at all and if the Liberals want to capture the imagination of Canadians by promising a universal program they better make sure that they are able to deliver and all at once.

One issue worth exploring is expanding the Canada health care to include dental care. As business picks up most of the dental tab already, the idea of offloading the costs of dental to the public sector will have its supporters even on the corporate right. The coporate tax rates will have to be raised slightly to pay for it, but these increases will be more than offset by what they are currently paying out in terms of employee dental care as it stands.

Another thing the Liberals can do is steal a page from the rest of the Western world minus the US and give Canadians more vacation time. Virtually ever other industrialized gives its citizens at least 4 weeks: Canadians deserve no less.

Conservatives are better Political Tacticians than the Liberals

As Red Tory has effectively demonstrated, the veil issue has everything to do with perceived shortcomings in recent legislation and nothing to do with Elections Canada. For example: http://redtory.blogspot.com/2007/09/clues-for-clueless.html Still the Conservatives have rightly sensed what the public feels should be the case. In so doing, they have struck another preemptive blow against Elections Canada. This proves once again that Stephan Harper and PMO are masterful political tacticians.

This is marked contrast to Dion. Whether it be the Doan Affair, or his decision to announce the deal with Green Party days after 6 Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, Dion has proved time again that he has a tin ear for politics. The only consolation for Liberals is that Martin was even worse. Whether it be David Dingwall or BMD, Martin had the unique ability of being able to make an innocent man look guilty and to turn a popular decision into a politically costly one. Lastly who could forget one of biggest political blunders in Canadian political history, viz., the Gomery Inquiry?

If the Liberals are going to win the next election, they are going to have drop Stephen Harper as Mr. Muzzle talking point. Harper’s Achilles Heal is his own caucus. The Conservatives are not blessed with a lot of front line talent. Rob Nicholson is no Irwin Colter. Jim Flaherty is no Paul Martin, John Manley or Ralph Goodale. Peter McKay is no John Graham, or Lloyd Axworthy. Rona Ambrose is no Stephane Dion. Moreover, the Conservative caucus still has plenty of nuts. By painting Harper as one man government and other Conservatives as muzzled and unreliable, the Liberals are inadvertently insolating Harper against the very thing that could most derail Conservative messaging, viz., the ranting of loons or the sure incompetence of his ministers. Moreover, this has over the years allowed the press to paint Harper as a moderate who has successfully beaten down the hard edge elements of the party. The Liberals are going to have to find a way of painting Conservative caucus as being an extension of Harper and not separate from him. Controversial statements should not be painted as missteps but as trail balloons.

More importantly, the Liberals are going to have to prove themselves to be better strategists than the PMO tacticians. This means more than anything else they are going to have to introduce a series of hot button issues that will result in sustained public debate. The Conservatives might score a few tactical victories, they are after all so much more skillful than the Liberals in that regard, but over the long whole superficial talking points stand little chance of standing up to a waves of public scrutiny. Truth almost always wins a war of attrition. This also means shifting the focus away from their incoherent Afghanistan policy and talking points and onto substantive criticisms of the Afghan mission. Whenever the Conservatives claim progress the Liberals must flood the public domain with facts and figures that paint a less rosy picture. Rhetoric must be met with cold hard fact.

Intensity Based Emissions and Globe and Mail's Gloria Galloway

Globe and Mail reporter Gloria Galloway wrote the following. In so doing, she might as well have written the Conservative press release.

“Leaders of Pacific Rim countries reached a draft agreement on climate change Saturday, a move Prime Minister Stephen Harper described in advance of its announcement as a "big, big step" toward reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
The agreement, which does not bind countries to meeting firm goals, sketches out a blueprint for improving energy use "to slow, stop and then reverse" climate change. It was reached after big polluters, including China, signed on to the Australian-led initiative. Canada and Japan were credited with pushing the negotiations toward a successful conclusion.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070908.wapec08/BNStory/International/home

No where did she mention that the intensity of emissions has been going down an average of 2% a year since 1996 well all the while GHG emissions have gone up 25%.

Just as bad, she let Harper pass himself as some kind statesman. Getting countries to agree to a voluntary reduction in intensity targets, they are almost certain to make anyway, is not only not much of accomplishment it helps set Canada up as the ideological mouth piece of those committed to doing nothing about global warming. If successful, this can only erode our international standing and not help it.

Lastly Galloway lets Harper pass off an old Republican idea as a new Conservative one. It was the Bush administration that first championed emission intensity "targets" and this was only later picked up by Harper. However, such is the pitiful state of the Canadian media that Harper is able to again pass off an old Bush talking point as a “bridge” to Bush. The media dully recorded the Conservative message and disseminated it to an unwitting Canadian public who expect and deserve far better from papers, such as, the Globe and Mail.

Liberals have a choice: Either change the Channel in Quebec or Loose

The Liberals have a choice. Either they can attempt to change the channel in Quebec, or they can continue with business as usual and go down to defeat there. Going Conservative Lite will not work. Dion’s reputation as an arch federalist speaks against it as does the fact that Conservative do asymmetrical federalism far better than the Liberals and they did it first under Mulroney meaning the Liberals came off looking like a bunch of Johnny come latelys on Martin. The Liberals must shift the entire focus away from federal provincial relations. Afghanistan and the environment are a start, but the Liberal’s track record hammers them on both files. Moreover, the fact that the Liberals Afghanistan position is not grounded in a coherent critique of the mission’s merits or lack there of hurts the Liberals immeasurably.

My position is clear. As Quebec is the most socially liberal Province and Montreal arguably its most the socially liberal city, the Liberals should seek to become the champion of social liberalism. The more controversial and headline grabbing the issue the better. Indeed, given the fact that the Liberals have virtually no chance outside of Montreal (Hull being a notable exception), this option is particularly attractive. I would like to hear some other opinions.

Maybe there is hope for the Liberals yet

Maybe there is hope for the Liberals yet. Liberal pollster Michael Marzolini gives the party some sensible advice.

1) Some Liberals have been touting recent economic turbulence as a potential opportunity to remind voters of their record as the party that tamed the national deficit and presided over almost 10 years of uninterrupted economic prosperity.

But Marzolini said the Tory economic record is viewed favourably as well. And House Leader Ralph Goodale said deficit busting "was for the era of the last 10 or 15 years and what's really important is what's going to happen in the next 10 or 15 years."

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/251775

I said the same awhile back.

The Liberal Party is not going to get back into power promising to be same old good economic managers minus the corruption associated with the sponsorship program. Indeed, the economy is not tanking. So the solid Economic stewardship card does not even have superficial appeal.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-liberal-liberals-need-to-break-with.html

2) He told them Canadians want fresh faces and creative, new ideas from the Liberals, not a rehash of past triumphs from former ministers left over from the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin eras.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/251775

I have made the same point.

The Liberal brass seeks continuity with the past. Only in Canada would a supposedly liberal party stress tradition as much as this one. What the Liberals should be looking to do is to break with their past (their most recent past anyway) and not embrace it.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-liberal-liberals-need-to-break-with.html

3) The Party must rebrand itself

The Liberals meanwhile, have yet to create an impression in opposition

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070830.wlibs0830/BNStory/National/home
I have made this point repeatedly.

It desperately needs to rebrand itself. The sponsorship scandal and years of political compromise have stained the once bright gloss. “What is does mean to be a Liberal?” has become as intractable as “what does it mean to be a Canadian?”.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-am-not-convinced-it-is-in-best.html

4) However, Mr. Marzolini also told the Liberals that two of their key attack points, Afghanistan and the environment, are less effective because their stand is not clear.

MPs said Mr. Marzolini told them that Canada's role in Afghanistan has the potential to move voters, especially in Quebec, but the Liberal position is vague in the minds of most voters – who also see the Conservatives as being for the mission, and the NDP against.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070830.wlibs0830/BNStory/National/home
I have made this point too.

Dion says Canada, having committed ourselves to the mission, should sit there and take our lumps until 2009; anything less would be “dishonourable”. Nobody has thought to expose the shallowness of Dion’s position by asking him this: If the Conservatives were to extend the mission to 2011, say, would removing Canadian troops in 2010, say, also be “dishonourable”? The Liberal party’s position can not be dictated by what the governing Conservatives stupidly commit Canada to as part of their three M foreign policy, viz., moronic, moralistic and macho. Dion can not afford to continue hiding the sins of the father; Liberal Afghan policy must flow from what the party’s assessment of the mission’s merits.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/04/electioneering-afghanistan-kyoto-and.html

Rather than blasting ahead with the pull out option, some of the initial criticism got to Layton and he started back tracking before finding his backbone again. I commented on this.

After showing signs original thinking on Afghanistan, Layton’s inner child lost confidence in his own views and has subsequently backtracked; the NDP’s Afghan policy is becoming more muddled by the day and in the process more and more Liberal.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/01/ndp-need-to-be-punished.html

5) Among other things, he said, the Liberals need to offer fresh faces and a fresh agenda to Canadians and start laying out policy alternatives easily understood by voters.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070830.wlibcaucus0830/BNStory/Front

Yep I have been harping on this for years.

the Liberals need to introduce policies that will get people talking. This means fist of all proposing policies that the public has the facility to talk about,

I have also offered some suggestions

1)Propose scrapping the monarchy

2)Propose mandating 4 weeks vacation a year

3)Propose free dental care

4)Propose Legalizing euthanasia

5)Propose Legalizing marijuana

6)Propose abolishing the senate

7) Again propose banning hand guns

8) Mandatory voting.

http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-liberal-liberals-need-to-break-with.html

Wente Part 2

Wente is at it again. http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070823/COWENT23/Columnists/columnists/columnistsNational/2/2/3/
So I fried off another letter.

>>>>>> I know a guy who does a lot of weed. It's not a happy story. He started smoking dope in high school. After university, his friends began working hard and building their careers. He smoked dope instead. His friends got married and had kids. So did he. But he couldn't ever keep a job for long. He had lengthy spells of unemployment. His family was always broke, because he inhaled every cent they had. Eventually his fed-up wife threw him out. Today, well into middle age, he's scraping by somewhere, living in some basement.

So don't tell me marijuana is harmless. Don't tell me marijuana doesn't destroy people and their families. It does.

Antidotes are supposed to make the abstract come alive and in so doing drive home a larger point. This does nothing of the sort. A guy smokes dope. His wife left him. He was unemployed for longs stretches. He lives in a basement. So what? If you think that this somehow brings home the destructive power of pot, you are dreaming. You have not even established a causal relationship. All that you established is that smoking pot did not stop him from presumably graduating from university. Many people, whose world come has come crashing down, or for whom life as not lived to their expectations, turn to drugs and or alcohol to numb the pain. It makes things worse, but it does not mean caused the problem in the first place.

Let me give you an example of how an antidote should work. Unlike marijuana, crack is physically addictive and that is the reason why there are crack whores but not marijuana whores. Anyway, I delay. The following crystallizes, as it were, just how addictive crack can be. When the city salts the roads I have heard of crack addicts inspecting each crystal of salt just on the off hand chance that they might find one to be crack.

>>>>>> The adults can't decide whether pot should be barely illegal, decriminalized, legalized or what. According to many progressive, liberal-minded adults, there's nothing really wrong with pot and the authorities should, like, chill out. Kids hear this message not just from the reefer lobby, but from leading lawyers, academics and newspaper editorial boards. You can scarcely blame them for believing that marijuana is less harmful than obesity, trans fats or lawn spray. As for booze - it's certainly less harmful than booze. Isn't it?

Question: is there a heroin or cocaine or meth lobby too? Look the fact that so many people from a wide swath of society are questioning the status quo should tell you something. Oh and by the way, of course marijuana is less dangerous to than booze. Remember the Senate report. "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue” http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2002/09/04/pot_senate020904.html How could leave the Liberal senate off the list? What kind of Conservative are you?

>>>>>Well, maybe not. Today's pot is to the stuff I used to inhale as whisky is to beer.

Oh yes potent pot as a generational wide expression of bad faith. I am glad to see you finally accepting the alcohol analogy though. Question: should all alcohol be banned because whisky has a higher alcohol content than beer? Of course not. Just whisky should be banned and beer kept legal and by analogy potent pot should remain illegal but your dad’s marijuana should be legalized.

Anyway, boomers also drank and they no more want their kids drinking than they do smoking pot. So I purpose that potent pot argument be extended to cover alcohol as well. It will now sound something like this. “The beer and pot we drank and smoked is qualitatively different from the “chemically supercharged” booze and pot on the streets today.”

>>>>And if that message is too righteous for you, please recall that cannabis is the lifeblood of your friendly street or biker gang. You know, the ones with guns. Have a nice day.

You are so right. ILLEGAL “cannabis is the lifeblood of your friendly street or biker gang.” I say we change that by legalizing marijuana.

Margaret Wente

I wrote a letter to Margaret Wente because of this. http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070626/COWENTE26/Headlines/headdex/headdexHealth/6/6/14/%3Cbr/%3E

Potent pot is more is more Drug Czar myth than reality. http://www.slate.com/id/2074151 Only the Independent bought in and the Guardian took care of them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,2041749,00.html

However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, 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. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 “chemically supercharged” joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of “dad’s joints” would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA’s Mark Kleiman.

Comparing marijuana strength through the years is "absurd," according to Lester Grinspoon, an emeritus professor at Harvard Medical School , who consults patients, many of them elderly, on using marijuana to relieve pain and nausea. "The whole issue on potency is a red herring," he said. "The more potent the pot, the less you use."Grinspoon said that studies have shown -- and his patients' experiences confirm -- that marijuana users smoke until they feel high -- or, as he prefers to say, "achieve symptom relief," -- and then stop, whether it took two hits or an entire joint. In this regard, today's higher-potency pot is no more "dangerous" than the bunk weed of yesteryear, he said.

http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/printthread.php?Board=wwwpottv&main=374623&type=post

unlike the speculative claims of increased danger, peer-reviewed scientific data show that higher potency marijuana reduces health risks. Just as with alcohol, people who smoke marijuana generally consume until they reach the desired effect, then stop. So people who smoke more potent marijuana smoke less – the same way most drinkers consume a smaller amount of vodka than they would of beer – and incur less chance of smoking-related damage to their lungs.

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/19416/

The original ONDCP "Facts" correspond with estimates from UCLA professor Mark Kleiman that marijuana has roughly tripled in potency. Kleiman also notes that there is no evidence at all that marijuana is getting kids more stoned than it used to. Writing on his own blog, Kleiman cites the respected annual University of Michigan study that asks respondents about levels of intoxication. Writes Kleiman: "The line for marijuana is flat as a pancake. Kids who get stoned today aren't getting any more stoned than their parents were. That ought to be the end of the argument." Kleiman points out that the average joint is now half its former size, so even if kids are smoking more powerful pot, they are smoking less of it. " 'Not your father's pot' is a great way to convince [boomer parents] to ignore their own experience, personal or
vicarious, and believe what they are told to believe."

http://www.slate.com/?id=2074151

All that being said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. As Martha Hall Findlay has noted, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.

By the way, I have question for you. 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?

While you are pondering just how to answer you can listen to helpless Barry MacKnight, chair of the Drug Abuse Committee for the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs duke it out over potent pot with the aforementioned Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatrist and Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Medical School.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200707/20070712.html


Now, I really wanted to make this short, but you have made so many errors I really must continue.

Wente "It causes paranoia, aggressiveness and psychosis, and it sharply elevates the risk of schizophrenia."

Good god where to start? I think I will start with a US Department of Justice Study.

“Marijuana and opiates temporarily inhibit violent behavior, but withdrawal from opiate addiction tends to exaggerate both aggressive and defensive responses to provocations.”

By point of contrast, this is what the same study said about alcohol, which is legal, and violence.

“For at least the last several decades, alcohol drinking – by the perpetrator of a crime, the victim, both – has immediately preceded at least half of all violent events, including murders, in the sample studied by researchers.”

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/GOVPUBS/psycviol.htm

As for the purported link between marijuana and schizophrenia, I will let Maia Szalavitz at Stats at George Mason University put into context.

As for the purported link between marijuana and schizophrenia, I will let Maia Szalavitz at Stats at George Mason University put into context.

“A 40% increase in risk sounds scary, and this was the risk linked to trying marijuana once, not to heavy use. To epidemiologists a 40% increase is not especially noteworthy-- they usually don’t find risk factors worth worrying about until the number hits at least 200% and some major journals won’t publish studies unless the risk is 300 or even 400%. The marijuana paper did find that heavy use increased risk by 200-300%, but that’s hardly as sexy as try marijuana once, increase your risk of schizophrenia by nearly half!

By contrast, one study found that alcohol has been found to increase the risk of psychosis by 800% for men and 300% for women. Although this study was not a meta-analysis (which looks at multiple studies, as the marijuana research did), it certainly is worth citing to help readers get a sense of the magnitude of the risk in comparison with other drugs linked to psychosis.”

Next I will let her point out the elephant living room of those arguing for a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia.

if marijuana produces what seems like such a large jump in risk for schizophrenia, have schizophrenia rates increased in line with marijuana use rates? A quick search of Medline shows that this is not the case-- in fact, as I noted here earlier, some experts think they may actually have fallen. Around the world, roughly 1% of the population has schizophrenia (and another 2% or so have other psychotic disorders), and this proportion doesn’t seem to change much. It is not correlated with population use rates of marijuana.

Since marijuana use rates have skyrocketed since the 1940’s and 50’s, going from single digit percentages of the population trying it to a peak of some 60% of high school seniors trying it in 1979 (stabilizing thereafter at roughly 50% of each high school class), we would expect to see this trend have some visible effect on the prevalence of schizophrenia and other psychoses.

When cigarette smoking barreled through the population, lung cancer rose in parallel; when smoking rates fell, lung cancer rates fell. This is not the case with marijuana and psychotic disorders; if it were, we’d be seeing an epidemic of psychosis.

http://www.stats.org/stories/2007/will_one_joint_schizoid_july30_07.htm

By the why, how is Gordan Brown’s reefer war going. Has he convinced people such as Dr Iddon, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse?

Dr Iddon, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse, said the study did not convince him it was time to return cannabis to class B. "I don't think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might - possibly for genetic reasons - trigger psychosis at an earlier age." The MP, who is also a member of the science and technology select committee, said there was a danger of criminalising "hundreds of thousands of young people" if the status of the drug was changed.
"If Gordon Brown changes the class of the drug, it won't be evidence-based but for political reasons," he said.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2136479,00.html

"It is not your father's” beer.

"It is not your father's” beer. It is “chemically supercharged” beer, every bit the equal of cocaine or heroin.

Will the Conservatives attack “activist judges” over marijuana possession?

Ontario’s marijuana possession laws have been struck down by Judge Borenstein. Now, be rest assured the Borenstein decision will not be the only one of its kind. For example, there is good chance BC’s possession laws will also be struck down soon enough. Senator Claude Nolin, of the 2002 senate report of marijuana fame, testified for the defense in that case. It is going to be 2003 all over again.

The Conservatives know this and, emboldened with what has happened in Britain , will time the launch of their new “anti-drug campaign” just as these decisions are taking effect. So you can also be rest assured that in addition to anti-drug campaign they going to launch a new campaign against “activist judges”.

Where does this leave the Liberals? It leaves them in a rather bad way. The Liberals have been talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue for years. On the one hand the Liberals have long maintained that Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record for consuming something that is, after all, less harmful than alcohol. It is this light that Chrétien famously joked about having a joint in one hand and the money to pay for the fine of having it in the other. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” On the other hand just as they are downplaying the affects of smoking marijuana they have stressed the importance of stiff penalties for trafficking. The Conservatives will argue that Liberal mixed messaging has real consequences and will repeatedly reference the recent UN report on marijuana use.

"We are very concerned about the damage and pain that drugs cause families and we intend to reverse the trend toward vague, ambiguous messaging that has characterized Canadian attitudes in the recent past," Clement said.

According to the United Nations office of Drugs and Crime, Clement said 16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 smoke marijuana.

He said that's the highest rate of any country in the world and the figure is almost equal to the number of tobacco smokers in Canada.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/248080

However, not only do the Liberals face the prospect of having their own words force fed them again and again, the Liberal policy of decriminalization is inherently incoherent; it is political position; it is an attempt to appeal to both sides of the political divide at the same time. One can not argue for tougher penalties for trafficking, which will inevitably lead one to reference the evils of marijuana, while at the same time arguing for the elimination of possession which will inevitably lead one to reference who harmless marijuana is in the greater scheme of things. Add to mix an acknowledgment that marijuana can serve a medical purpose and you have a conceptual train wreck as a policy.

The only good thing to be said about Liberal’s decriminalization policy politically or otherwise is that it could serve as a Trojan horse. Indeed, robbed of the ability to charge traffickers with the lesser charge of possession, police may not be able to keep up with the huge number of growers coming onto the market and the whole rotten prohibition edifice may come crashing down. Marc Emery may get his wish. The producers might over grow the system. All that being said, this hardly helps the Liberals.

Should Conservatives launch such a two front campaign, strategically the only thing that will make sense for the Liberals will be to abandon decriminalization and argue in favor of legalization. Should the Liberals take this bold step there is absolutely no way the Conservatives would win the public debate. The talking points available to the Conservatives are pathetically weak and will be wiped away by the avalanche of criticism they will receive, both here and abroad. The size and scope of the SSM debate will pale in comparison. Conservatism in Canada will be ripped in half. With respect to no other issue is the fissure between social conservatives and conservative libertarians greater than with respect to marijuana. Just image the National Post and Fraser Institute and sizable chucks of the Sun media chain siding with the Liberals!

Conservatives Promise a War on Drugs: Is Dion with us or against us?

It looks like Conservatives are going to open up a third front in the war on marijuana, Britain, and the US being the other two.

During his speech, Clement also told the meeting of doctors his government is preparing to roll out an anti-drug campaign for young people. "Canada has not run a serious or significant anti-drug campaign for almost 20 years and the messages young people have been receiving during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting, to say the least," he said. "We are very concerned about the damage and pain that drugs cause families and we intend to reverse the trend toward vague, ambiguous messaging that has characterized Canadian attitudes in the recent past," Clement said.

According to the United Nations office of Drugs and Crime, Clement said 16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 smoke marijuana.

He said that's the highest rate of any country in the world [which is false] and the figure is almost equal to the number of tobacco smokers in Canada. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/248080

Conservatives have promised a propaganda campaign aimed at “our young people” that will no doubt coincide, with a yet unannounced, promise to crack down on marijuana.

That begs the question. How will the Liberals react? This is how I think things will play out.

They will echo the Tories on trafficking, but will stick to their guns when it comes to possession. They will argue that dealers should be locked away for long durations for trying to poison “our young people”, but “our young people” should not be saddled with a record for consuming something that while poisonous is nevertheless less harmful than alcohol. In so doing, they will prove once again just how stogy, passive, unimaginative, timid, unprincipled, tied to polling for policy and temperamentally conservative Canada’s so called Liberal Party truly is.

Decriminalization is not a coherent position; it is an attempt to have one’s cake and eat it too. It is an attempt to appeal to both sides of the political divide at the same time. It is also politically disingenuous. Middle of the road, offend no one, please no one, interest no one, policies that are utterly incoherent at their core because they are designed to appeal to both sides of any political divide are only good if one is ahead in the polls. They make no sense whatsoever when one is behind in the polls and in opposition. Indeed, what made such policies so appealing when the Liberals were in power, viz., the lack of attention such policies garnered, is what makes them so unappealing now.

At best, decriminalization is a strategic Trojan horse and there in lies its only appeal. Indeed, robbed off the ability to charge traffickers with the lesser charge of possession, police may not be able to keep up with the huge number of growers coming onto the market and the whole rotten prohibition edifice may come crashing down. Marc Emery may get his wish. The producers might over grow the system.

So what arguments will the Conservatives trout out? Conservative Rob, reefer mad, Nicholson gave us a preview back in July.

"[Marijauna is] much stronger than it was years ago and, in some cases, marijuana may be laced with more dangerous chemicals,"

Potent pot is more is more Drug Czar myth than reality. http://www.slate.com/id/2074151 Only the Independent bought in and the Guardian took care of them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,2041749,00.html

Furthermore, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, 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. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 “chemically supercharged” joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of “dad’s joints” would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. All that being said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. As Martha Hall Findlay has noted, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.

As for marijuana being laced with “more dangerous chemicals”, I presume Nicholson means harder drugs and the only of preventing this is to legalize marijuana and regulate it.

"There is also evidence it may lead to experimentation with other drugs. It's not something we want to encourage."

Sigh. There was a reason why gateway theory as reason for keeping marijuana illegal fell out of favor in the first place. There is no coherent explanation for why marijuana’s intrinsic properties would lead people to experiment with other drugs; the theory fell down for lack of an intelligible mechanism. Without this explanation doubt was cast on assertion that the relationship marijuana and other drug use was more than mere correlation.

The marijuana as gateway drug argument is not dead though. In recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana’s pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana’s illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged black market relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.

Needless to say, both are arguments are easy pickings, but are the Liberals going to touch them? Not on your life. The Liberals would rather the media, i.e., if the media even takes up the fight, get the credit.

The Conservatives also look poised to shut down the Vancouver’s safe injection site. To his credit Dion has shown a willingness to fight this. The Conservative position is, of course, completely without substance.

About 24 studies in top international journals, including the Lancet and the British Medical Journal, have suggested the safe-injection site reduces the chance of people contracting blood-borne infections such as HIV because people are given clean needles to get their fix. "We've said that we want to make sure that the research has been comprehensive," Clement said Monday. He said that since he extended the exemption to keep the clinic open until the end of the year, more research has been conducted. "Some of it has been questioning of the research that has already taken place and questioning the methodology of those associated with Insite and the research that they've done," he said. [What questions? and Who has been leveling them. Be specific, you lying sack of shit] Clement said the public and academic debate surrounding the safe-injection site is a good thing and will provide input for the government's final decision on the facility. Safe-injection sites also exist in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, Spain, Norway and Luxembourg.

Giuliani's Foreign Affairs essay; how it is being received

“And after having read the piece, I can safely say that Giuliani is as nutty as a fruitcake. His approach to foreign policy is spectacularly dangerous, irresponsible, and stupid. Imagine Dick Cheney with a loaded gun in one hand, and an empty bottle of antidepressants in the other, and you can start to get the idea.” http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12550.html


Essentially, he wants to massively increase a defense budget that already spends more than the rest of the countries on the planet combined so as to buy more submarines and anti-missile systems to protect us against a land-based guerrilla movement. We’re then going to use that military to go in, apparently, to topple every regime we don’t like and to wipe out every instance of non-democratic badness and spend decades occupying those countries. All, of course, while winning friends and influencing people.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/08/rudy_giulianis_dangerously_stupid_foreign_policy_vision/
Sweet Jesus, the Giuliani essay is badly written.
http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/003445.html


The world is a dangerous place. We cannot afford to indulge any illusions about the enemies we face. The Terrorists' War on Us was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through strength.

Was this written by a nine-year-old? Jeebus.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_08/011874.php


Rudy Giuliani's essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, laying out his ideas for a new U.S. foreign policy, is one of the shallowest articles of its kind I've ever read. Had it been written for a freshman course on international relations, it would deserve at best a C-minus (with a concerned note to come see the professor as soon as possible). That it was written by a man who wants to be president—and who recently said that he understands the terrorist threat "better than anyone else running"—is either the stuff of high satire or cause to consider moving to, or out of, the country.
http://www.slate.com/id/2172285/


this man is batshit insane
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/get_this_man_a_styleguide.php


I would write a review, but alas I have been beaten to the punch.

Is Canada "Back"?; Are the Liberals Back?

A month ago Stephen Harper said this. “The news is spreading throughout the world: Canada’s back”. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/07/01/4305265-cp.html Where did we go and when did we leave? I am not quite sure how to answer either, but it has something to do with the US and a general unwillingness on are part. This kind of rhetoric from Harper is not new. For example, Harper said this is 2003, “We've just become increasingly irrelevant to a country [U.S.] that has a lot of priorities…” (CBC Newsworld, July 11, 2003).

Now, in so far, as the US is increasingly desperate to hang onto whatever military allies it has left, Canada is indeed “back”. However, pace Stephen Harper a country’s standing is not in proportion to its willingness to absorb causalities in futile and expensive foreign adventures that serve only to increase the likelihood that the country will be attacked by terrorists. "It's certainly raising Canada's leadership role, once again, in the United Nations and in the world community where we used to have an important leadership role.” “I can tell you its certainly engaged our military. It's made them a better military, not withstanding and maybe because of the casualties.” http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/19/harper-afghanistan.html No, Canada is a middling country and our standing in the international community will rise in fall in proportion to our willingness to pass legislation that can serve as a model for other countries.

SSM is a great example. On no issue has Canada gotten more press and positive foreign press than on the issue of SSM. Canada was an important reference point for legislators and judges in Spain, South Africa, Massachusetts. Moreover, Canada’s unprecedented decision to allow foreign same sex couples to marry promises to push the issue in countries across the globe. In an effort to have their marriages recognized, foreign same sex couples are opening up legal challenges in their countries of origin. Others need not even bother. Several US states, most notably New York, recognize the validity of such marriages, even though these states do not officially allow same sex couples to marry there.

This brings me to another point. Geographically, culturally, economically and linguistically Canada is uniquely positioned to mount an ideological challenge to US conservatism. At no time was this more apparent then in the lead up and immediate aftermath of George Bush’s 2004 re-election. Ann Coutlier threatened to have us “crushed”, O’ Reilly has threatened us with nuclear winter and the Western Standard’s Goldberg

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_22_54/ai_94960947 has said we should be “bombed” and his colleague Matt Labash http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/349tpijp.asp?pg=1 seconded him. Thankfully all are only arm chair Lemays.

By far the most popular form of reproach, though, was to echo Harper and call us irrelevant. Tucker Carlson, for example, likened Canada without the US to Honduras “but colder and much less interesting”. http://mediamatters.org/items/200412010011 The problem with such a train of thought is that it involves them in a kind of performative contradiction. In repeatedly talking about us and calling us irrelevant they helped entrench us as part of the public debate south of the border and so made us increasing relevant.

On the flip side of things, the New Yorker proclaimed as a “Northern light” http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/07/07/030707ta_talk_hertzberg and the San Jose Mercury asked if there was room for another province. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1051/a10.html

Both sides agreed that with Bill O’Reilly assessment. A “brave new progressive world is a possibility. That's what happened in Canada.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140742,00.html

At a time when Karl Rove was making gay marriage a campaign issue, Canada was legalizing it. At a time when the Neo Cons were trumpeting the Iraq invasion as the beginnings of New American Century, Canada was beginning to realize just how lucky it was that we stayed out. At a time when the Bush administration was stepping up the war on drugs, Canada was glibly promising to decriminalize marijuana or even better legalize it. This explains why true blue Democrats where wanting to move to Canada and not, say, Germany following Bush’s re election. http://slate.com/id/2109300/ We were, if only by accident, the anti Bush.

Martin never realized what a god sent Bush was until to it was too late and he never did realize that words mean little. Only action counts. As a result, rather than pushing ahead with further socially liberal legislation, he rested on his laurels and stopped with SSM. Dion shares these same faults. The rhetoric is there. "I think the prime minister we have thinks he is a president and Mr. Bush is his American Idol”. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=582d8348-979a-4e36-856f-8fa4465ec3d0 However, Dion has continually failed to demonstrate a willingness challenge what conservative America holds near and dear. So long as that continues, the Liberals will remain “irrelevant to a country [U.S.] that has a lot of priorities” and by extension unable to tap into an important part of Canadian nationalism, viz., a pride in our ability to affect what is happening outside our borders, particularly south of border.

"When in Rome": A Joke

A guy goes on vacation to a place he has not visited before nor knows little about. The first thing he does after departing the airport is to rent a car. He must drive across country to reach his final destination. After an hour or so he comes across a man fucking a cow just off the highway. Naturally he is startled, but says to himself “hey there are nuts in every country” and after a short while the pastoral beauty of the countryside pushes the memory out of consciousness. However, a mere half hour later he sees not one guy but two guys fucking cows just off the highway. This time nothing was going to spare him from the memories of seeing three guys fucking cows. He began to beret himself. “How could I be so stupid as to spend my hard earned money on a vacation to the cow fucking capital of world?” And then it hit him. He had not gotten lucky in quite some time and “hey when in Rome.” So he pulled over the shoulder of the road and looked for secluded spot. Not that it seem to bother the locals, but there is fucking a cow and then there is fucking a cow in full view of people motoring down a busy highway. He wandered over to the first cow he saw, blurted out “hey baby”, played with a nipple and then got down to business. Mid act he was startled by a laugh. He looked up and noticed he was being watched. Several locals, including the first guy he had seen fucking a cow, were laughing at him. (The face of a guy you see fucking a cow tends to imprint in your memory.) He zipped up and angrily confronted these hypocrites. “What are you laughing at?” he yelled. Pointing to the cow fucker, “I saw him doing the same earlier today”. They continued to laugh. “What could possibly be so funny? From what I have seen men around here would just as soon fuck a cow as milk one.” The crowd fell quiet for a second and one man began talk, half stammering half speaking. “Your cow your cow She is ugly.” The assembled multitude burst out laughing again.

How does this relate to politics? It doesn’t, but there is history of political cow jokes in Canada.

For example, Gordan Gibson explained Trudeau’s reaction the the Le Dain Commission thus: “The report was released as we were touring a bull-semen facility in Guelph, Ont. (I am not making this up.) The press cared not at all about productive agriculture and totally about weed. At an end-of-tour press conference, the prime minister was asked if he favoured decriminalization. We were in the semen facility's boardroom and it had a blackboard with a permanent picture of Elsie the cow painted on, perhaps in recognition of the customer base. Mr. Trudeau was very quick. Saying not a word, he went to the blackboard, took the chalk and drew a cartoonist's balloon out of the cow's mouth. Inside he slowly wrote, "I like grass!" The room dissolved in laughter.” http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/printthread.php?Board=current&main=1130356&type=post

Finally, Tommy Douglas famously likened Canada to a cow. “Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes.”

Bountiful, SSM and Polygamy

Social conservatives like to say that same sex marriage will lead to polygamy and point to the BC government’s unwillingness with the situation with Bountiful as some kind of proof. In so arguing, they demonstrate not only their ignorance of the now voluminous literature on polygamy, but also their ignorance of the long history of BC government’s dealings with the people of Bountiful. Pace what the local wing nut may have told you, the reluctance of the BC government to deal with community long predates the great debates about SSM. For example, The BC attorney general thought about pressing ahead with charges in 1992, but declined because of “charter considerations”. What were those charter considerations? They most certainly do not have to do with concerns about the legal prohibition against polygamy being struck down. They are partly evidential and are partly due to concerns about freedom of religion.

In a strict legal sense there is no polygamy in Canada and no one is arguing that there should be a change to the law. Indeed, far from arguing for the legalization of polygamy, Blackwell et al’s out has always been to claim that never mind what people say about these religious marriages. Check the books; no one in Bountiful has more than one legal wife. This is what makes the social conservatives warnings so fucking ridiculous.

The issue at hand is and will remain whether a religious ceremony (i.e., a “marriage”) with no force of law constitutes a violation of Canada’s laws against polygamy. Seeing as how social conservatives are so found of lumping same sex marriage in with polygamy, I will give them such an analogy. Many churches conducted same sex “marriages” long before June 2003 even though these “marriages” meant nothing in the eyes of the law. Going after the people of Bountiful for “marrying” more than one person would be somewhat
analogous to the police having gone after those churches for "marrying" same sex couples prior to 2003.

Margaret Somerville, SSM and Polygamy

Margaret Somerville asks in the Globe and Mail “If same-sex marriage, why not polygamy.”

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070811/COPOLY11/Headlines/headdex/headdexComment/10/10/18/

Somerville, the great social conservative hope, argued that by allowing people of the same sex to marry each other, marriage would go from being a child centered institution to something based on love and that change would have unarticulated negative societal repercussions. I will not go into the reasons here why the Conservative opposition to Bill 38 was intellectually, morally and legally bankrupt. Suffice it to say, it was. What I want to point out is that when it comes to the nature of marriage Somerville got things hopelessly ass backwardness. SSM did not open the door to marriage being based on romantic love. On contrary, it is because marriage is an institution based on romantic love that opened the door to same sex marriage.

She is making the same mistake again. Believing that SSM is transformative change and not an outflow from what marriage has evolved into being, she mistaking believes that there is a straight line from SSM to polygamy. As she sees it, if marriage is based on romantic love, as she thinks was established with the passage of C 38, there is nothing to say why one person, at least in principle, can not be married two or more people at the same time. What matters is that they love each other. The problem with such an argument is not only is it historically wrong, it skips over virtually all current debate about polygamy. Namely, does the institution of polygamy breed a whole host of social evils? Most people in the West think it does. Somerville thinks she can just make the entire debate go away in just a few short sentences. To wit: “

Also, we need to be careful to distinguish under-age sex, forced marriage, spousal abuse and child abuse from polygamy, itself. These horrible crimes do occur in polygamous marriages - and monogamous ones - and must be dealt with severely.”

She is wrong.

As for Somerville herself, perhaps it is because I am a consequentialist and so do not have the time of day for “natural law”, but I think the press is far too deferential and I think she is a very average thinker.