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As it stands now therefore the Liberal Party’s best chance of regaining at least second place is by putting the marijuana issue front and center.
More than one pundit has scoffed or made a snide sarcastic joke about the Liberal Party’s vote to include marijuana legalization in its policy document. Even Bob Rae the interim leader made a joke of it during his keynote speech. It is not a joke and they are missing the boat on what could be a game changer.
For me the issue of marijuana is one of liberty versus state overreach. It is an unjust law that attempts to control the choices and the lives of individuals. Smoking pot does not harm others, only the smoker, and the smoker has the right to decide what sort of harm he or she enjoys.
For the Liberal Party the issue could be about money and the economy.
It would be a huge boon for government revenue without even needing to add a “sin tax” to the legal sales of marijuana. All that unreported income and all that sales tax that has gone unreported from Canada’s most profitable cash crop would suddenly be available. It would represent a new source of revenue but without having to raise taxes by even a dime.
On the spending side billions of dollars would be saved on persecuting marijuana sales. Some of this money will likely go to whatever regulatory framework the Liberals create, but it would have to be a monstrous bureaucracy indeed to equal the massive sum that it takes to investigate, prosecute, and then jail someone in the marijuana trade. The hypothetical Liberal government can claim to be ending the deficit faster than the Conservatives and may even have some money left over for one of their foolish pet projects.
With the deficit eliminated with relative ease and debt being paid down Canada would be in a unique fiscal position for a G8 and G20 country. We can expect that confidence in Canada would soar even higher and investment will flock to Canada, as they flee the crumbling economies of Europe.
The best part is that Canadians by in large already agree that marijuana should be legal. They also think that the economy should be the priority. It would not be a difficult sell to connect the two issues and convince Canadians to vote for a party that has the best most painless plan to put Canada’s fiscal house back in order.
The resolution coming out of the Liberal convention is non-binding. This means that there is no guarantee that the issue will be in the 2015 Liberal election platform. In fact Canadian political parties have a history of completely ignoring policy resolutions from conventions, so the chances of this mantle being taken up are pretty grim. Hopefully the Liberal Party leadership will take a moment to truly look at legalization and realize the potential. It would not only be the best thing for the Liberals but for Canada as well.
18 comments:
I think this is an attempt by the Liberal Party to embrace technological advances such as cloud computing.
:)
well put, Hugh.
I generally find Blogging Tories writing to be well researched. I'm always amazed,however, at how quickly Tory bloggers dismiss pot as being for "hippies". I know a lot of light/moderate pot smokers who would prefer to buy a taxed, legal product.
as long as I don't end up having to smell stinking weed in my back yard then smoke your brains out, but for a political party to have legalization as their main issue is a joke, and the idea that taxing and regulation will solve all our or any of our fiscal problems is just foolish. As for wasting of police time the amount of time wasted in pot crimes is miniscule compared to the resoures squanderd on minor traffic offences.
So then, why stop at weed? Would the same point not be valid for all illegal substances? Heroin? Not hurting anyone, just the user. Ecstasy? Not hurting anyone, just the user.
Would you agree to taking the same steps with these drugs as the ones that you are endorsing the Liberals taking with marijuana?
Personally, I see the Liberals as using the legalization of weed for one reason, and only one reason, they need votes from an untapped source, plain and simple. Kind of reminds me of the "Vote Liberal and we will eliminate the GST" promise from long ago. Say anything to get that vote, however, when it comes time to act?
"Who said we were going to legalize marijuana?"
,is most likely the response Canadians will hear, because the Liberals know that it would open the proverbial Pandoras Box.
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As I wrote on a previous post you must be dreaming. I am not sure what it takes to understand that the Liberal Party in spite of now proposing to legalise marijuana is further away from anything libertarian than the CPC. When you push for jailing farmers for not selling their grain to the state agency and for prosecuting people for dissenting or offensive speech, you are not even faithful to real liberal principles. They remain the statist/collectivist party much the same as the NDP.
The Liberals are simply desperate for an issue that will get a good portion of the voters on their side. The LeDain Commission of 1970-71, under Trudeau,recommended legalization.
In all those years of LPC majorities, it was never done. I don't remember a Bill ever being tabled in the House for legalization by the Liberals.
Remember the promise ,which was a big part of Chretien's platform, to rescind the GST?
We know how that worked out!
Chretien did introduce a bill to decriminalize marijuana but didn't push it.
And it is true that if this was a major plank, let alone THE major plank of an election platform, then the Liberals would be hopelessly lost. Or even moreso than they are now.
But this could be a real extra silver bullet if they come up with a decent platform.
Not only the economic benefits Hugh outlines. Not only do Canadians already support it.
But it sets up a great wedge issue that brings a lot of other issues to the fore. It is clear that the Harper Conservatives are overly antagonistic, stupidly antagonistic to drugs of any kind, especially marijuana.
The Conservative Party clearly care more about marijuana than pedophilia as they chose to make simple possession result in a longer minimum jail term than pedophilia. If that doesn't show how out of synch the Conservatives are on this issue, then I don't know what does.
It allows them to highlight how ideology has ruled over research, results and science in our criminal code and policy making. It is a small little policy that allows them to compare and contrast between a "know nothing" government that wants to control behaviour with its dumb on crime legislation.
If they do it right, of course. In other words, it will be just a footnote policy in history. Although once it was passed, Rae made some very strong and impassioned arguments for the policy so it's possible.
Platty,
Yes I would. Although I admit that the economic/fiscal arguments for the other drugs are not as strong. The market for them is much smaller.
Alain,
I never claimed that the Liberals were libertarian. In fact I suggested that the Liberals use a very unlibertarian argument for proposing drug legalization.
How is creating new bureaucracies and regulatory panels good for the economy or not part of state over reach?
Just what has the government done to deserve revenue from pot?
The economy is not about how much revenue the government has(it has too much now) it's about how much revenue the citizen has.
Giving government money is akin to burning it, there is no value added, it's a dead end street.
Dumb idea.
Just decriminalize it so the price comes down enriching the citizen and allowing him to use that money saved on items that the government skims now.. and drastically lowers policing costs saving the government revenue it can piss away elsewhere.
People have used pot for thousands of yrs, there is no need to regulate a weed.
Platty just made my earlier point for me. Comparing pot to heroin or ecstasy is the type of knee-jerk response I'm talking about. Marijuana is not anything like the drugs you mentioned. Pot users don't overdose, they don't become prostitutes, rob or steal to buy more pot.
Right Nony, if you would have actually read my comment, you would have seen I was saying marijuana has the potential to lead users on to other drugs.
However,the major point I was making was,if you legalize one banned substance, it would open the door for legalizing all drugs. Thanks for that knee jerk reaction though, I hear marijuana can hamper your comprehension skills.
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The argument already exists Platty. We allow nicotine and alcohol and caffeine and many other drugs that make us feel good. Has this led to other drug use? What's your evidence?
The thing is there is lots of research that shows marijuana use does not lead to others.
Even if it did, it is research that will show us if there is widespread harm or not, and democracy that will decide if other drugs should be legalized or not.
Right now, far more Canadians think it should be decriminalized and regulated. Many Canadians think Harper's war on drugs is a huge waste of money and is failing just as badly as it did in the US, while needlessly destroying lives and families and unduly prioritizing weed over pedophilia.
Our values as set out in the Criminal Code (especially as amended by Harper) are upside down on this issue.
Sorry Platty but you simply link the decriminalization of pot to the decriminalization of all drugs. You never stated that M.J. leads to other drugs ( the silly gateway argument). I also never said that I used pot. I hear narrow mindedness can hamper your ability to express yourself.
if you legalize one banned substance, it would open the door for legalizing all drugs.
Sounds great. All the more reason to legalize MJ.
You're right nony, that was on my own blog that I made that point, my apologies.
What I had said there was, on a documentry looking at the prostitution in Vancouver, they were interviewing a young lady who said her heroin addiction grew out of her weed habit.
Not a problem Platty but maybe we could have this discussion without the personal attacks. There are people that progress to hard drugs from pot. This is from scumbag dealers that promote things like crack and meth as "better that grass".
Did you know that Hurst started the war on pot as the boogie-man to outlaw hemp? It was eating into Hurst's profit in the pulp industry?
And that, Anon, highlights one of the most ridiculous aspects of the crazy hyper-antagonism to weed: the restrictions on hemp, which can be used for so many products including clothing. It's allowed here but because of restrictions and US laws, it is very expensive and difficult to get/sell. It could be a huge economic crop outside of smoking it.
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