Pot shouldn’t guide political agendas

I t was revealed last week that her British advisers warned Margaret Thatcher when she was prime minister to beware of the “unsound personal views” of Pierre Trudeau, her Canadian counterpart whom she was about to meet for the first time.

I wonder what those stuffy Brits in striped trousers would have to say to their prime minister about Justin Trudeau, should he become prime minister of Canada one day.

For Trudeau fils has set himself up as the political champion of callow youth and aging hippies by advocating what’s called the legalization of marijuana, meaning, presumably, that they should be able to inhale or ingest pot in its various forms without legal penalty.

This must alarm, not only those in striped trousers, but those with red necks and barely concealed guns in other countries of the world, such as the U.S., where wars on drugs are being lost.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper isn’t alarmed easily. He has acknowledged that “the current approach isn’t working” but he made the admission in Colombia where the evidence is pretty hard to ignore.

His government is still committed to cracking down on “organized drug crime” — as if disorganized crime is not so serious — and has made a sixmonth sentence for growing more than five marijuana plants and sharing some with a pal the mandatory minimum.

It must be obvious to anyone who keeps up with the public opinion polls that most Canadians believe the possession and use of pot should at least be “decriminalized,” if not made legal. Yet Elizabeth May of the Green party is the only leader to have the courage, or folly, to advocate legalization.

More young Canadians between the ages of 11 and 15 are using cannabis than kids their age in any of the major developed countries of the world, whether they have liberalized marijuana laws or effective restrictions, according to UNICEF.

Trudeau has taken a lot of criticism already for saying that taxing and regulating cannabis is “one of the only ways to keep it out of the hands of our kids.” It sure hasn’t kept many youngsters away from booze or cigarettes — though smoking seems passé among kids these days.

And I’d like to hear the Liberal leader tell us the other ways he thinks would work.

I have to say that my experimentation with cannabis is slight, and its effect, frankly, disappointing, apart from a new appreciation of a girl’s nostrils blowing smoke in a firefly-lit field once, long, long ago.

So I’m not qualified to say whether Trudeau is right in saying that pot is no worse than alcohol or tobacco. And I’ve read that those who make a study of this sort of thing are divided on whether marijuana use does more harm than good or vice versa, so am puzzled by his saying that “evidence and science” should guide us in doing the right thing.

I’m also puzzled by the importance so many Canadians seem to attach to what is really a trivial issue. The use of hard drugs and the violence and crime with which it is associated surely is doing our society and individuals within it more harm than the use of weed.

The penalties now imposed on those using cannabis without medical permission are absurd. As an offence, pot-smoking ranks closer to a parking infraction than driving drunk and knocking someone over, which can earn a sentence of considerably less than six months in jail.

Common sense and perspective should guide our governors where evidence and science say so little. But the right to smoke pot isn’t worth tearing up the paving stones for.

So much of commentary so far has concentrated on how this issue could determine the political fortune or fate of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party come the next election.

Politics have been inspired in Canada by issues such as universal health care, regional disparity, equal treatment before the law and under the Constitution, and the nation’s role in the world.

How sad if the right to puff on a weed becomes, now, the issue that sets or upsets Canadian agendas and makes or unmakes Canadian governments.