The Liberal Party of Canada's movement dedicated to legalizing the cultivation and sale of cannabis alone.
On November 5th of 2011, several members of the Liberal Party of Canada met in a hotel room during the Liberal Party of Canada in BC Convention. It was a follow-up to the proposal made at an earlier policy workshop for creating a resolution on the legalization of ma*****na in Canada. The small group decided to dedicate their efforts for the remainder of the convention to pushing the issue of legal
ization and getting on the agenda. By the next day, with nearly unanimous support, the policy was passed through the workshop and during a policy plenary session was made a priority for the 2012 National Convention in Ottawa. However, without further grass roots support, this resolution will never pass. As this movement is relatively new, the official petition has not yet made it up on the Liberal Party website. For now join with us, invite your friends, and as soon as the petition is up everyone will be notified so we can show our support for the movement! Why Legalize?
- Unregulated markets are inherently dangerous for consumers. Consumers have no way of knowing if the ma*****na they have purchased contains harmful narcotics.
- The sale of ma*****na is a source of revenue for organized crime. These organizations use this funding to support their nefarious activities.
- Much of petty crime can be directly attributed to income seeking from either addicts who cannot get help or individuals who are barred from jobs due to their criminal record.
- Locking drug users up with hardened criminals turns them into hardened criminals and increases recidivism.
- Drug use is a social issue, not a criminal one. Jailing people for drug use only stops drug use in the short term; it does not deal with the underlying issues.
- Drug use is NOT drug addiction. There are no physical addictive qualities to ma*****na.
- Those who want to seek help feel that they cannot come forward, lest they lose their jobs, their families and their community when they are labelled a “drug addict”.
- There exists an $8 billion unregulated market for ma*****na in B.C. This is a portion of the economy that needs to be utilized by businesses and the government.
- This opens up a new industry in Canada, which will help create jobs, increase the government coffers to pay down the debt, and put money towards health care/social services and other essential Canadian needs.
- The legalization of ma*****na represents an opportunity for farmers to diversify their crops, especially in this time of market unpredictably.
- Prohibition has led to more drug use, and increases prices of drugs through a “black market tax”. A black market tax consists of the opportunity risk of incarceration.
- The Harm Principle states that unless someone is harming someone else, society should not stop them from doing as they please.
- The government does not have the authority or the right to tell Canadians what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
- Canada has a history of questioning drug policy, going back to the Le Dain Commission in 1969
- The over-criminalization of ma*****na costs Canada in police, the judicial system, and prisons. It slows down our court system, which can lead to offenders of other crimes going free.
