Canadian Green Party leader is sorry for *not* smoking pot

[Every Breaking Wave]

From the AFP

Canada's Green Party leader Elizabeth May apologized on Wednesday for never having smoked marijuana, as she unveiled her election plank, which touts legalizing and taxing pot.

"I am not a fan of marijuana use," May told reporters at a campaign stop in Halifax, televised nationally. "I've never used marijuana. I apologize."

The Green Party in its policy document said decades-old marijuana prohibition "has utterly failed and has not led to reduced drug use in Canada."

Rather, prohibition has led to costly policing to combat its distribution, "criminalizing youth and fostering organized crime," it argues.

Going further than former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien's 2002 pledge to decriminalize marijuana that was twice foiled by US protests, the Green Party says it supports cannabis sales to adults through licensed distributors.

As well, the party would like to see "small, independent growers" thrive, and the government taxing the weed at the same rate as tobacco, generating an estimated one billion dollars Canadian (931 million US) annually.

I would like to point out at this time that the Green Party of Canada is not the same party as the Marijuana Party.

 

[Fig]

Hey, at least she's not trying to befriend fishes...

(I'm probably voting for her. And I signed the petition to get the NDP and Conservative and other jackasses to stop creatively coming up with new ideas to keep a party that's polling around 8-10% nationally from the debate)

 

[I Started A Cult]

This is so strange... I've heard legalizing pot would make it easier to keep it out of the hands of the young, but I've heard it just makes it easier to get it to kids as well...

 

[TTEchidna]

Well, the bad part isn't it getting to kids; it's people getting killed or blowing all their money over it.

 

[Nomura]

The whole point behind the idea of this is to mimick why we ended the prohibition movement. We made alchohol illegal....and that just made people of all ages, race, and genders want it more. So we made it legal again, and now have better control of its distribution. That's not to say it's a good things, but it's better than haveing it in the hands of the criminals, who get it more to children than anyone else. This here is the same idea....better control.

 

[Satoshi-chan]

This is so strange... I've heard legalizing pot would make it easier to keep it out of the hands of the young, but I've heard it just makes it easier to get it to kids as well...

If you're under the legal alcohol buying age and you want to get fuzzy, you can get your hands on marijuana a LOT easier than you can with alcohol. I learned this back in my younger years, and still hear it from kids today. If marijuana were legal, and the sames laws placed on it, obtaining it by underages would be just as difficult as it currently is for booze (not impossible, but pretty hard if you don't know someone crazy enough to buy it for you).