Pubdate: Thu, 25 Feb 2010
Source: New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal (CN NK)
Copyright: 2010 Brunswick News Inc.
Contact: http://canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/onsite.php?page=contact
Website: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/289
Author: Charles W. Moore

CONSERVATIVE ATTACK ADS AND ANTI-DRUG WAR ARE WEARYING

I'm a Stephen Harper supporter. I think he's the best Canadian prime 
minister of my lifetime (the possible exception being Louis St. 
Laurent, but I'm not quite old enough to remember), and I would love 
to see Mr. Harper succeed in his quest for a parliamentary majority.

However, even I'm getting fatigued by the Conservative Party's 
stridently negative attacks on Opposition leaders and members, and 
wish they would step back a bit - something most Canadians would 
appreciate and thus strategically beneficial to achieving that 
majority objective.

In fairness it wasn't Tories, but the Chretien/Martin Liberals, who 
introduced American-style political mud-slinging with over-the-top 
portrayals of Mr. Harper and his Canadian Alliance predecessor 
Stockwell Day as "scary" right-wing radicals. However, Conservatives 
snatched that ball and ran with it, witheringly ridiculing former 
Liberal leader Stephane Dion and portraying current Grit honcho 
Michael Ignatieff as a sort of opportunistic political tourist. It's 
probably effective to a degree or they wouldn't do it, but falls 
disappointingly short of the higher road we would prefer political 
leaders to travel.

Not only party leaders have been targeted. This month, Nova Scotian 
Liberal MP Mike Savage complained that Conservative strategists 
distorted his comments in a recent radio interview on taxes, spending 
priorities and marijuana decriminalization in a talking points memo 
distributed to Tory MPs and supporters, entitled "Ignatieff's 
Reckless Plan for Canada," which stated, context mangled, that Mr. 
Savage had articulated the Liberal leader's alleged three-point plan 
for Canada to raise taxes, engage in reckless, unaffordable new 
spending, and go soft on crime by "legalizing drugs."

Mr. Savage told the Halifax Chronicle-Herald he doesn't advocate 
raising taxes and that the interview transcript proves he explicitly 
rejects the idea of legalizing marijuana. However, the Tory memo 
alleges him saying: "I am a big fan of decriminalizing marijuana." 
Young people tell me we should make it legal and "take the money and 
do something with it. I understand that."

What Mr. Savage actually said, as reported by the Herald, was "I am a 
big fan of decriminalizing marijuana. I understand the argument. And 
I tell you... this has been raised at schools like Auburn and 
Dartmouth High, the kids are saying, look, why don't you make this 
legal, take the money and do something with it? I understand that. I 
just don't know that we are at a place where we need to be legalizing 
more things that are dangerous."

I seldom agree with Mike Savage on much of anything, but do share his 
objection to being calumniously misquoted and misrepresented. He also 
happens to be partly right on the principal point of contention, an 
area where I, and a growing number of Canadians, part company with 
the Harper Conservatives. Indeed, I think Mr. Savage is being over-cautious.

I am a lifelong philosophical and political conservative, and aspire 
to being an orthodox, traditionalist, catholic Christian, but I 
strongly believe marijuana should be not only decriminalized, but 
legalized - particularly for medical use. For once I'm swimming with 
the mainstream. Angus Reid 2008-'09 polls found 53 per cent (65 per 
cent in B.C.) of adult respondents affirming consumption of marijuana 
should be allowed in Canada, among other things removing its 
distribution from the control of criminal gangs and street dealers, 
which would more positively impact crime and social distempers than 
the hopeless, pathetically ineffective "war on weed" ever will. A 
June 2009 POLICE Magazine survey found even a majority (54.6 per 
cent) of police officers saying they support medical marijuana legalization.

The hypocrisy of a society that abuses alcohol to the extent ours 
does demonizing use of a (by comparison) relatively harmless herb 
borders on psychotic. Marijuana, especially when delivered by 
smoking, is of course not a benign substance, but compared with 
ravages inflicted by alcohol abuse it's far less destructive. 
Marijuana legalization advocate and Harvard Medical School Associate 
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry Dr. Lester Grinspoon notes that 
toxicity levels of marijuana are so negligible the harm ratio of the 
drug has never been determined.

"You can die of alcohol poisoning, but you can't die of an overdose 
from smoking cannabis," he told The Community Press. "There has never 
been a death from it. You can't kill a person from an overdose of 
marijuana, it can't be done."

As for the "gateway drug" theory, that was debunked by the Institutes 
of Medicine in 1999 and every reputable study over the past 11 years.

So why is the Harper government keeping prohibition of a substance 
that 14 per cent of Canadians admit to having used in the past year 
in the Criminal Code, and squandering a reported $200 million a year 
diverting law enforcement and justice resources from addressing real 
problems, ruining lives, and increasing crime by refusing to just 
legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, as they do booze? It's plain 
irrational and counterproductive.

One would expect a steely logician like Mr. Harper to recognize this. Why not?

Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotia based freelance writer and editor. 
He can be reached by e-mail at  His column appears 
each Thursday.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart