Regulating pot benefits kids: Margaret Trudeau
Margaret Trudeau, mother of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, used a speech at a Mississauga Catholic high school Saturday to advocate for the regulation of marijuana.
In a wide-ranging and unvarnished talk about her decades-long battle with mental illness, the bestselling author and former wife of prime minister Pierre Trudeau said evidence shows that marijuana is damaging to children’s brains.
“This is one of the reasons why we really have to get hold of marijuana and regulate it,” she told a gymnasium packed with educators and staff at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Secondary School, where she was the keynote speaker at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board’s annual equity conference.
“All evidence shows that children under the age of 18 should not smoke marijuana. It’s very bad for the development of their brain. After 18, go ahead!” she said, eliciting laughter from the crowd. Trudeau’s comments come at a time when her son’s Liberal government is working on a plan to legalize the drug.
When asked by the Star if she had ever advised her son on mental health issues now that he is prime minister, Trudeau refused to answer, saying, “It’s about mental illness, not about Justin Trudeau.”
Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, now the MP for Scarborough Southwest, has been tasked by Justin Trudeau to head up the Liberals’ project to legalize marijuana, an undertaking that has so far floated the idea that the drug might one day be sold in provincial liquor stores.
In her speech, Trudeau, 67, recalled she took to marijuana “like a duck to water” shortly after being introduced to the drug in the late ’60s.
“It was the beginning of my selfmedicating my little brain,” she said of her attempts to control her then undiagnosed bipolar disorder. “I didn’t know what depression was, I didn’t know about mania. I knew very little at that time.”
But now, following several years of intensive treatment, she is winning the battle, she said.
Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged her mentalhealth-care advocacy during her attendance at the state dinner for Justin Trudeau at the White House. The president’s comments prompted a standing ovation.