X Marks the Spot

Here's a tip for the Liberal Party of Canada: make the legalization of pot part of your next platform.

A lot of people smoke it, and keeping it illegal helps organized crime.

If you try to go to a party populated with people under 30, pot is there. In fact, a number of people in their 40s and 50s smoke it these days, too. These are the people who have been smoking it since the 1960s. They haven't outgrown pot yet.

You can't walk through a park or down a major street in Toronto without smelling it. It's everywhere, and it's not hurting the smokers any more than booze is - in fact, it's probably hurting them considerably less.

Chretien and Martin both proposed to decriminalize marijuana, but that was the stupidest policy ever. The bill would have allowed people to get caught smoking pot and not have a criminal record. They would simply pay a ticket, as we do when we park illegally. Such a move may have slightly increased the use of marijuana. That would lead to one thing: increased crime. The people who grow the plants and sell the drugs are breaking the law. We're often told by politicians these people are members of organized crime groups.

Decriminalizing the drug will help those organized crime groups.

There appear to be two ways to solve the pot problem.

1. Get everyone to stop smoking pot.

2. Get members of organized crime groups to stop growing and selling pot.

The first solution is probably unachievable.

The second, on the other hand, could be achieved. Probably not completely, but mostly.

You legalize pot, then you regulate it and tax it.

You let the provinces deal with the rest. In Ontario, the LCBO could be the only place to sell it. In Quebec, where you can buy beer at the gas station, maybe they'd have looser rules. Make it illegal to sell it to people under 19, and illegal for people under 19 to smoke it. Make it illegal to smoke it while driving, and to drive while under its influence. Make it, in other words, exactly like alcohol, since it is, essentially, exactly like alcohol.

If it's easily purchased, and provided the product is as good and of a comparable price, people will let go of their traditional dealers and simply hit up the LCBO or convenience store. Of course, the problem will never be entirely solved, just as liquor and cigarettes are smuggled and sold illegally, but it will make an enormous dent in that problem, and it'll make a lot of people happy.

If the Liberals want to differentiate themselves as the smarter, groovier, more people-friendly party than the Conservative Party, this is something they'll need to seriously consider.

Dion has already gone after the artists, promising to restore funding Harper cut to promote Canadian art in other countries, so why not become a true, progressive alternative, with real, progressive ideas?