CONSERVATIVE ATTACK ADS AND ANTI-DRUG WAR ARE WEARYING

I'm a Stephen Harper supporter. I think he's the best Canadian prime
minister of my lifetime (the possible exception being Louis St.
Laurent, but I'm not quite old enough to remember), and I would love
to see Mr. Harper succeed in his quest for a parliamentary majority.

However, even I'm getting fatigued by the Conservative Party's
stridently negative attacks on Opposition leaders and members, and
wish they would step back a bit - something most Canadians would
appreciate and thus strategically beneficial to achieving that
majority objective.

In fairness it wasn't Tories, but the Chretien/Martin Liberals, who
introduced American-style political mud-slinging with over-the-top
portrayals of Mr. Harper and his Canadian Alliance predecessor
Stockwell Day as "scary" right-wing radicals. However, Conservatives
snatched that ball and ran with it, witheringly ridiculing former
Liberal leader Stephane Dion and portraying current Grit honcho
Michael Ignatieff as a sort of opportunistic political tourist. It's
probably effective to a degree or they wouldn't do it, but falls
disappointingly short of the higher road we would prefer political
leaders to travel.

Not only party leaders have been targeted. This month, Nova Scotian
Liberal MP Mike Savage complained that Conservative strategists
distorted his comments in a recent radio interview on taxes, spending
priorities and marijuana decriminalization in a talking points memo
distributed to Tory MPs and supporters, entitled "Ignatieff's
Reckless Plan for Canada," which stated, context mangled, that Mr.
Savage had articulated the Liberal leader's alleged three-point plan
for Canada to raise taxes, engage in reckless, unaffordable new
spending, and go soft on crime by "legalizing drugs."

Mr. Savage told the Halifax Chronicle-Herald he doesn't advocate
raising taxes and that the interview transcript proves he explicitly
rejects the idea of legalizing marijuana. However, the Tory memo
alleges him saying: "I am a big fan of decriminalizing marijuana."
Young people tell me we should make it legal and "take the money and
do something with it. I understand that."

What Mr. Savage actually said, as reported by the Herald, was "I am a
big fan of decriminalizing marijuana. I understand the argument. And
I tell you... this has been raised at schools like Auburn and
Dartmouth High, the kids are saying, look, why don't you make this
legal, take the money and do something with it? I understand that. I
just don't know that we are at a place where we need to be legalizing
more things that are dangerous."

I seldom agree with Mike Savage on much of anything, but do share his
objection to being calumniously misquoted and misrepresented. He also
happens to be partly right on the principal point of contention, an
area where I, and a growing number of Canadians, part company with
the Harper Conservatives. Indeed, I think Mr. Savage is being over-cautious.

I am a lifelong philosophical and political conservative, and aspire
to being an orthodox, traditionalist, catholic Christian, but I
strongly believe marijuana should be not only decriminalized, but
legalized - particularly for medical use. For once I'm swimming with
the mainstream. Angus Reid 2008-'09 polls found 53 per cent (65 per
cent in B.C.) of adult respondents affirming consumption of marijuana
should be allowed in Canada, among other things removing its
distribution from the control of criminal gangs and street dealers,
which would more positively impact crime and social distempers than
the hopeless, pathetically ineffective "war on weed" ever will. A
June 2009 POLICE Magazine survey found even a majority (54.6 per
cent) of police officers saying they support medical marijuana legalization.

The hypocrisy of a society that abuses alcohol to the extent ours
does demonizing use of a (by comparison) relatively harmless herb
borders on psychotic. Marijuana, especially when delivered by
smoking, is of course not a benign substance, but compared with
ravages inflicted by alcohol abuse it's far less destructive.
Marijuana legalization advocate and Harvard Medical School Associate
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry Dr. Lester Grinspoon notes that
toxicity levels of marijuana are so negligible the harm ratio of the
drug has never been determined.

"You can die of alcohol poisoning, but you can't die of an overdose
from smoking cannabis," he told The Community Press. "There has never
been a death from it. You can't kill a person from an overdose of
marijuana, it can't be done."

As for the "gateway drug" theory, that was debunked by the Institutes
of Medicine in 1999 and every reputable study over the past 11 years.

So why is the Harper government keeping prohibition of a substance
that 14 per cent of Canadians admit to having used in the past year
in the Criminal Code, and squandering a reported $200 million a year
diverting law enforcement and justice resources from addressing real
problems, ruining lives, and increasing crime by refusing to just
legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, as they do booze? It's plain
irrational and counterproductive.

One would expect a steely logician like Mr. Harper to recognize this. Why not?

Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotia based freelance writer and editor.
He can be reached by e-mail at cwmoore@gmx.net. His column appears
each Thursday.