I wrote and posted this blog on the Free-FM website and it attracted a bit of reaction so I thought, let’s see how it plays here!
What the down-on-its-luck Liberal Party of Canada did last weekend was pretty amazing.
Oh it did a lot of things. It chose a party President (Mike Crawley) and decided non-party members who are merely supporters can cast votes in future leadership races. But the most interesting thing it did was to endorse a resolution to legalize marijuana.
This accomplished several things. It set the party further apart from the stodgy Conservatives. It appealed to younger voters who might finally become engaged in the electoral process now that there’s an issue they care about. And it took care of a crime problem by pledging to cut it off at its knees. There’s also the tax revenue stream that it will create.
What an absolute waste of time it has been to have police worrying about someone who has a little bag of personal-use marijuana on them. So what. I don’t smoke the stuff but I know enough about it to know it’s better to have it regulated than to spend countless resources on it when there are truly criminal issues that deserve the attention. I can still remember the belly laugh it used to give me when a news anchor colleague at another radio station would describe people arrested in pot busts as “bad guys”. Really? And yet you don’t use those words to describe a murderer or a child predator or someone who bilks an old person out of their savings? Ridiculous.
A huge U.S. government study was published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that smoking pot, even over many years, does not impair lung function. In fact the researchers were flabbergasted to discover that the THC in pot may actually help prevent lung diseases. I’m not about to declare marijuana “healthy” but I also don’t want to stop anyone from using it responsibly for anxiety reduction, as a sleep aid, to lessen the symptoms of several neurological diseases or just because they want a bit of a buzz. We fully accept people using alcohol for any and all reasons and drinking is known to be hard on the liver and other parts of the body.
I think the Liberals are going to clean house with this issue in the next election. Legal pot is coming. Get your rolling papers ready!
As to approving the motion to legalize marijuana, that’s as relevant as the Federal liberal party is right now, its NOT! Oh sure, approving the legalization marijuana is a great sound right for the media to gravitate to, but where are the fundamental policies and strategy necessary to manage and run this country if they were to get back into power?
If as you profess, that the legalization of marijuana will bring out the younger voters, may I suggest that they stay in their basements and continue smoking!
I do think it’s ridiculous the amount of time and money spent on marijuana concerns when alcohol is killing people at rampant rates (both themselves – heart disease is another huge side effect of over indulging – and others). ‘Tis the drinkers who need to stay in their basements and stop getting behind the wheel, as RIDE stats from 2011 clearly showed. But I digress…