Ronald Reagan once quipped that the government's view of the economy could be summed up as follows: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

For better or for worse, the Canadian government seems to have decided that marijuana has been on the move long enough to start taxing and regulating it.

For the uninitiated, legalizing marijuana would mean that the drug would be available for purchase but regulated by the government -- similar to alcohol or tobacco. The difference is that marijuana is far cheaper to produce at scale than either of those two.

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That's because addiction is often an adaption to your environment.

If there is one thing I have learned over the last 20 years of working with homeless populations it's that the way we look at addiction is often wrong. Let me explain. When I was first starting my career as a chaplain, if you would have asked me what causes alcohol addiction I would have told you "it's very simple: alcohol causes alcohol addiction."

I don't think that anymore - not about alcohol, not about cocaine, not about prescription pills, not about any drug.

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How would you feel if your daughter was ordered to strip naked by her teachers and wrongfully accused of selling drugs?

When news broke that a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Quebec City was forced to remove her clothing to prove she was not carrying drugs I couldn't help but think of my daughter when she was that age.

The girl was accused of dealing pot after a teacher confiscated her phone and went through her text messages, in one of which she had joked about selling marijuana.

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