LIBERAL CONVENTION: POT POLICIES CREATE A CONUNDRUM

It would have been taking the easy way out if delegates at the Liberal
party convention chose to duck and run from two controversial resolutions
on marijuana rather than debate them openly in the wake of the tragic
deaths of four RCMP officers near Mayerthorpe.

To their credit, however, the delegates chose to tackle them head on.

In the justice/constitutional workshop -- which was a breakout session of
about 600 delegates -- they passed a resolution calling for even stiffer
penalties on marijuana grow ops, including mandatory minimum sentences. But
to make matters interesting, and more confusing, they also passed a
resolution demanding complete legalization, to treat marijuana no
differently than alcohol or tobacco -- which means taxing and regulating
the heck out of it.

The Young Liberals of Canada deserve credit for having the guts to advance
the legalization debate, even though they were under pressure to drop it.
In the end, their impassioned speeches to a standing-room-only crowd (along
with a clever text-messaging campaign to ensure a high youth voter turnout)
carried the day.

It probably helped that two of the young men speaking in favour of the
resolution were emphatic non-pot users. They had far more pragmatic reasons
for endorsing legalization. Foremost among them is to take pot trafficking
out of the hands of organized crime. There's a nice logic to it: The best
way to ensure no other RCMP officers die in the line of duty in a raid on
an illegal marijuana grow op is to ensure there are no more illegal
marijuana grow ops.

One young Ontario liberal remarked that he lives in the tobacco belt and
assured the stodgier members of the crowd that there were no drive-by
shootings or toxic mould growing in the houses in his neighbourhood. It
stands to reason: Mafia gangs aren't interested in jumping through
government hoops to get a business licence to set up a corner store to sell
cigarettes or liquor or run a bingo hall; it's entirely reasonable to
believe that they won't want to operate a government-regulated marijuana
grow op, either.

The kids also understand that the prime reason pot is considered a gateway
drug is because it's dominated by organized crime. When you go to the
liquor store for a bottle of wine, the vendor doesn't try to up sell you on
whiskey. When you go to a drug pusher to get marijuana, it doesn't take
long before he starts offering harder drugs. So, splitting harmless
marijuana away from the sale of more addictive and dangerous narcotics
could actually help to diminish the incidence of addiction.

In the Netherlands, the widespread availability of marijuana has even
reduced the incidence of marijuana use. In a United Nations report on
global drug use, 8.9 per cent of Canadians above the age of 15 were found
to smoke pot; in Holland it was only 4.1 per cent. If you want to reduce
drug use, legalization would seem a better way to do it.

There's also a lot of money in it -- for the government. The drafters of
the bill estimate a government windfall of $3 billion if they were to
regulate and tax the sale of marijuana.

"We can find ways to spend the money -- we're Liberals!" an Alberta Young
Liberal enthusiastically reassured the crowd.

So how does a party rationalize having two policies, seemingly
diametrically opposed to each other?

It's actually quite simple.

"While we have the law, we get tough on bad guys," explains session
moderator and Scarborough Liberal MP Derek Lee. "Once we dispense with the
law there are no bad guys."

For a party that actually cares what its members think, this
double-mindedness might pose a conundrum. For the Liberals, it's not such a
big deal.

The government of Canada has already chosen to go in the direction of the
hammer, so the new Liberal drug legalization policy will languish un-acted
upon, until some other group of Young Liberals brings it forward again at
some other Liberal convention for some other group of Liberal cabinet
ministers to ignore.

It's great to see democracy in action.