Everybody’s talking about legal weed. Nobody’s talking about the risks.

By David Krayden

Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s most ardent supporters have to admit that he has, on occasion, appeared clueless.

Oh, you won’t give on that point? Well, it would be hard to pick the best example of Trudeau’s splendid naïveté, but I would tag the night he named China as the economy he admired most as his defining moment.

His insouciant attitude towards legalizing marijuana also suggests a policy mind that is … half-baked.

I am well aware that weed is being smoked or otherwise ingested by Canadians of all ages, and law enforcement has become increasingly tolerant of its use. I grew up in an environment where marijuana consumption was commonplace. At least one-quarter of my peers in junior high (and I’m talking the early 1980s here) were recreational users — many indulging daily, usually during the lunch hour.

It was interesting to note the life experiences of those who regularly toked when I caught up with them at tenth and twentieth high school reunions. The habitual pot smokers had often graduated to other, more expensive and more devastating drugs, and had little in the way of professional or family lives to brag about.

(Yes, I know this is anecdotal evidence. Sometimes it’s the most effective argument, because statistics are always about people you don’t know, while anecdotes are about people you do know.)

I know we can all cite the data we like to support our positions on marijuana legalization, whether pro or anti. Still, there is overwhelming evidence pointing to the harmful effects of marijuana use on mental skills – especially when first used at a young age. Pot use tends to temper ambition and encourage the kind of lethargy that leads to underemployment or unemployment. And I’ve never known a pot smoker who could take it or leave it.

I hope we don’t make it easier to take it.

I think we need to keep making an exception for pot. At the very least, we need to have a much, much clearer idea of exactly what the government has in mind.

We’re still trying to recover from the legacy of a century of socially-acceptable tobacco — the social and economic costs of people inhaling noxious smoke into their lungs. Marijuana use is every bit as much of a health hazard. Still, people do a lot of unhealthy things. We can’t start banning them all.
But I think we need to keep making an exception for pot. At the very least, we need to have a much, much clearer idea of exactly what the government has in mind.

I know that Trudeau is keen on legalizing marijuana and he’ll probably do so within the next two years. So why he has not bothered yet to outline just how he plans to grow, license, market and (potentially) export this crop? Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has already piped up with a suggestion that LCBO stores be allowed to sell the legal product (at the usual hefty markup you get from a state monopoly, no doubt).

Who really thinks such a system would put the black market out of business? Who believes drug dealers won’t undercut the ‘legal’ product? It’s a lot easier to grow weed than to distill your own booze, and it will be virtually impossible to distinguish a state-sanctioned joint from a privately-cultivated one.

How much is marijuana going to be taxed? Where will this revenue go? Will it be used to offset the social and health costs of increased marijuana use? Are we going to put another toxic product on the market that will enable a small number of people to get richer — and the government to get bigger — on the backs of an addicted population?

Why isn’t Trudeau suggesting that we examine how legalized marijuana has worked in states like Colorado, where even hardened libertines are questioning the benefits of an experiment that has brought a spike in crime and impaired driving? Shouldn’t we be studying how this has worked with populations that are essentially identical to the Canadian example?

No, it’s full speed ahead, damn the consequences … don’t even ask what the consequences might be.
Substance abuse is a serious problem in Canada. We don’t need to make this drug more socially acceptable and accessible than it already is.

Please, Mr. Prime Minister — let’s think about this first.