Pam McColl is a well known advocate in the fight to resist the normalization of marijuana. She is the spokesperson for SAM CANADA, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which proposes neither incarceration nor legalization, but a reasonable and healthy policy in between those two extremes.
The
Liberal Party of Canada has decidedly inflamed the marijuana debate to
excite young adult voters and an electorate who have bought hook, line
and sinker into the propaganda that marijuana is safer than alcohol or
tobacco.
Those that argue that tobacco is far worse should be asking why it is that the Liberal Party did not take on the tobacco industry, or the
Conservative Government’s record on tobacco control.
If
tobacco is the true public villain why is it that the Liberal Party has
remained silent on he biggest drain on Canada's health care costs and a
product that kills one in five Canadians.
Where is the Liberal Party of Canada on the pending action to take on tobacco for $100 billion in damages? Why
talk of running a $10 billion deficit when $100 billion is sitting
there waiting for this country to collect off tobacco, making a true
difference in the lives of Canadians and saving our public health care
system tremendously?
The NDP say they will not
agree to the ratification of the TPP which includes long fought for measures to
curtain the tobacco industry, a major victory for public health and could positively impact Canada's ability to collect the $100
billion, bringing the tobacco industry to its knees. The USA Government
claimed and received $247 billion in the Master Settlement of 1998.
Liberal
marijuana policy would see those who give
marijuana to kids receive more severe penalties at an increase cost of
law
enforcement and hardship to families. It is a policy position that would
increase the punitive nature of marijuana control. 23% of kids report
receiving marijuana
from a parent. What would the Liberal Party do with these parents found
to be
offering marijuana to their kids, surely not put them in prison ? How
would they enforce their policies ? Between 30-53%, region dependent,
grade 12 students in this country report regularly using marijuana. That
makes for a great many parents facing harsh consequences considering
they have been grossly misinformed. Many hold to the belief that
marijuana is a safer choice, some even accepting the preposterous idea
that it is an "exit drug".
The
way to reduce the rate of use marijuana is to
either embark on a massive education campaign to effect a reduction in
the demand for this psychotropic drug, or the other option is we wait
until the damage becomes abundantly apparent and the public elects
representatives who will be charged with correcting the problem.
Entrenching
use by adopting legalization with further
normalization would be a gross mistake. It would serve only a small
elite of
adult users while allowing for predatory Big Pot to industrialize
marijuana cigarettes. There will be no easy retreat. We continue to
struggle to curtail the advance of tobacco or alcohol from reaching out
to and securing the youth market to this day.
The
current youth market for marijuana is 2.5 times that for adults.
Legalization addresses supply for the adult market, a small elite of
less than 10% of the Canadian population. It
fails completely to address a reduction in demand.
We
are in a
fight to defend our children’s brains. In this context it becomes a
human
rights battle and sadly both opposition parties blew the opportunity to
offer up sound public health policies on this crucially important issue.
100% you can quit smoking cigarettes using cannabis.
ReplyDeleteNew information that recently came my way:
ReplyDeleteDuring the 1980s, Paul Martin was one of five members of the Executive Committee of Imasco, a British American Tobacco subsidiary which owns 100% of Imperial Tobacco. Imperial currently boasts 70% of Canada's cigarette market.
After resigning from Imasco to run for Parliament in 1988, his work for Imasco didn't stop. One of Martin's first acts after becoming Finance Minister in 1993 was to slash federal tobacco taxes and to strong-arm provinces to do the same, which cut cigarette prices in half in Eastern Canada in February of 1994, and nearly doubled youth smoking rates in those provinces. Rates in Western Canada, where prices were maintained, remained stable. Martin claimed that the tax cut was necessary to reduce cigarette smuggling, although it's now known that RJR-Macdonald and Martin's Imperial Tobacco orchestrated most of that smuggling.
In 1998, Martin torpedoed a complete tobacco-sponsorship advertising ban just days before then-Federal Health Minister Allan Rock was to give a press conference announcing it. And Martin also killed bills by Senator Colin Kenny to emulate what California did to reduce its youth smoking rate to a third of Canada's.
Follow the money - how much did the pot lobby and the tobacco lobby finance the Liberal Campaign of 2015 ? We want and deserve to know.