Pubdate: Wed, 13 Sep 2017
Source: Niagara Falls Review, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2017 Niagara Falls Review
Contact: http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/letters
Website: http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2907
Author: Mark Bonokoski
Page: 6

HEALTH CONCERNS SHOULD BE A BUZZKILL FOR POT-HAPPY POLITICIANS

If the Trudeau Liberals were Boy Scouts, they'd be miserable failures
in living up to the troop's famous motto of "Be Prepared."

Anyone who still thinks the Liberals have all the pieces in place in
their rush to legalize the recreational use of marijuana by Canada Day
2018 has being smoking the drapes. Health concerns? Hmmm, perhaps it
would have been best to have gotten onto this long before now, seeing
as how sucking in THC-laced smoke into the lungs just might have some
health repercussions for the burgeoning toker crowd. But that is not
the case. While Ottawa's parliamentarians were enjoying their last
week of summer recess before returning to the partisan fray, an
all-party Commons health committee began meeting only this Monday to
question medical and legal professionals on the looming
legislation.

Pot producers were scheduled to be there, as well, over the five days
of proposed uninterrupted meetings. And coppers, too. "We have a lot
to learn, and a lot to listen to," said committee chair Bill Casey, a
Liberal MP from Nova Scotia. No kidding. In a rather obvious attempt
to deflect attention away from two corruption trials - one in Sudbury
involving alleged byelection fiddling, and a criminal trial that
commenced Monday in Toronto regarding the alleged erasing of damaging
e-mails in the premier's office - the Wynne Liberals of Ontario last
week dropped their plan on how they would handle wacky tobaccy's
availability in the country's most-populated province.

Ontario is planning on ramping up the sale of pot by having 150
stand-alone unionized stores in place by 2020, and making 19 the legal
age for cannabis use among its citizenry.

The Canadian Medical Association has been like a loop tape in
repeating its concern about the health risks of cannabis, particularly
when smoked rather than ingested as edibles.

It has also been urging the Trudeau Liberals to set the legal age for
cannabis consumption at 21, which the Ontario Liberals obviously chose
to ignore last week when they threw their pot doors open.

The Liberal chair of the health committee, however, has concerns he
evidently finds more serious than the hauling in lungs full of
THC-laden smoke from a combusting weed.

As far as Bill Casey is concerned, his committee's key policy issues
should centre on preventing the contamination of pot-growing
facilities, the four-plant allowance for personal use, and setting the
minimum age of access at 18.

Other than that, everyone needs to chill.
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MAP posted-by: Matt