Oh, Shiny Pony!

Yowza. Rosie did some smack? Not a fan of DiManno or the Red Star, but that was actually pretty good. Exactly right about the boring boring boring stoners, and also correct that Justin actually talked some sense on drugs when he ran for Liberal leader. ("it's not your mother's pot" -- true enough, and priceless when you consider his mother.) AFAIK Rosie is the only media scribe to have called him out the radical U-turn change since.

Taken aback by this.

I see not everyone in the Liberal/liberal establishment loves the Shiny Pony or flip-flopping.

What I see in that liberalized future is a humongous regulation bureaucracy, an entire new government beadledom devoted to navigating the distribution and law enforcement consequences. It would make the gun registration shamble look like a fart in a mitten. Two billion bucks would hardly cover it.

Which is still a vast improvement over the status quo, a fact the author is desperate to avoid but can't argue against. The rest of the piece is overheated piffle except for the call to decrim all drugs.

In all the debates over legalization of pot I have not heard the simple question, "Is this something we want more of?" We have a lot of usage now, that is true, but if it is legalized, we will have a lot more usage. I cannot see how that would be a good thing. This was a great article, but it will make no difference. Thoughts, reasons, articulation of policies and their consequences.....it all matters naught. All that does matter is image, and Shiny Pony has connected on the cool meter with this issue. I wish I had more faith in the Canadian voter.

Considering the source...a remarkable piece...

"Trudeau advocates making government the pusher. Can you imagine the magnitude of that muddle?"
~Rosie DiManno

Government is already the alcohol pusher, yes even in Alberta we still have the Alberta Liquor Control Board.(ALCB)
Those alcohol pushers have ruined a lot of lives.
Pushers, dirty rotten slutty pushers.

Is there anyone worse than a pusher, eh?

Legalization is a no go until a legally solid means of determining impairment level is developed (that is pmsh's position btw).

Justin demonstrated ignorance of many of the facts/issues surrounding ending THC prohibition.

Rush Limbaugh and others have discussed low information voters. Justin Trudeau has demonstrated on this and several other issues that he is a low information leader.

They should be testing for impairment, not some arbitrary level of some drug. For example something like a key pad in every vehicle that one must enter an alpha numeric code like a 'captcha' within a time limit before the vehicle will start. A similar system could measure impairment for people at check stops etc.

Other suggestions to measure actual impairment?

Is your level of consciousness the baseline?

Surprising to see this get by the Torstar editors.
Perhaps they'd just like Justin to talk about issues that actually affect most folks?

I'll go with some John Wayne advice for the Frantic Pony as he prances around the ring dropping little piles of horse sh*t. "Life is tough. It's tougher when your stupid"

The TORSTAR printed that?

The direction the putrid Star has been going might have been a determining factor in printing this story Joseph. The rag of rags has had falling financials for a while and like all things leftie, in the test of real world math and finances it is failing, time to throw some non crack smoking politician stories to the" muddled asses" of Toronto. Fear not by next week full on stupid will resume control of the editorial board and Rob Ford will have been seen leaving one of Jack U. Laytons little underage girlie houses in Scarborough.

Well even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut and this momentary lapse in liberal judgement isn't about to cause me to read any more of their articles or opinion pieces even though I thoroughly agree with this one.

Was she on heroin when she wrote this?

Yes, there will be bureaucracy. But what does she think there is now when we're arresting about 16,000 people per year at a cost of roughly $500,000,000?

As for issues like driving... yeah, that's not a problem right now is it? I mean, it's illegal, so nobody is doing right? So we don't have to worry about it now, but if we legalize, THEN we do. How idiotic is this line of reasoning? We should be testing for all drugs right now, regardless of whether or not they are illegal, because some people are driving on them.

How will we do it? This isn't rocket science. With this or something like it:

http://www.drugalyser.com/

And the bit where she somehow conflates legalization with Bernardo... unbelievable. Just unbelievable. She should get her resume over to Sun TV with that kind of reasoning.

As for you lot... so much for your laughable railing against the nanny state. You guys have no problems with government limiting your cognitive liberty.

Hee-hee. The Usual Suspects are yapping, like a pool of seals when the trainer approaches bearing a bucket of herring.

I'm not just sure what Rosie means by "Liberal-lite on policy": she seems to be complaining that Justin isn't offering enough of...what exactly? Kind of a big hole in her critique, isn't it? She'd need to explain what she means by that remark for anyone to form a really complete view on the credibility of her argument, it seems to me.

Nevertheless, as far as it goes, I think she's got the right assessment of Justin (as outlined in the quote which is the subject of this post) and she's undoubtedly correct in her characterization of the "humungous regulation bureaucracy" (which would actually not render the current law-enforcement apparatus obsolete in the least; in truth, the differential economies of scale in the alcohol and cannabis businesses render the provincial alcohol "control" model completely irrelevant to the discussion -- come to think of it, which level of government would control pot distribution, anyway? We'd for sure be heading for a Supreme Court reference on that tater).

All of which means absolutely nothing, of course, since Mr. Trudeau, Jr. is not in the least serious about anything he's talking about on the subject, and absolutely not sincere in saying he wants to change the law. He can't even answer the most basic questions. And for the reasons well-stated by Rosie, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the possibility that large numbers of pot smokers, who don't care about the law anyway, obviously, are going to find the motivation to, en masse, get their faces out of their bongs and their sub-culture long enough to go stand in line to vote for a Justin Trudeau tax. Ain't gonna happen in my life-time.

Which leads to the real reason Justin is taking the position he is: he couldn't care less about the youth pot-smoker "vote" -- this is all about LOOKING "edgy" and "progressive" as against stodgy, old Stephen Harper, in order to appeal to a different demographic altogether, namely the aging baby boomer vote (surprise, surprise), which has abandoned the Liberals in favour of the Conservatives. In reality, of course, it's all so same-old, same-old: in opposition, oppose everything the Conservatives want to do (and then implement precisely the same thing after the election); juxtapose open-minded Canada and the paranoid United States (and its "war on drugs"); feign "righteous indignation" and campaign from the left, but govern from the centre-right, or something (again, Rosie needs to explain what Justin isn't giving her enough of). Govern, that is, if you get there, which won't happen with this guy.

and North of 90 does it again, hoists the ultra-stupid flag, N-90, 20 bucks and a 12 year old, presto, keypad by passed. Now I will agree that not every one is effected the same by ANY drug (including booz), but U need to set a limit so laws can be reasonably enforced, arbitration at road side is open to abuse and discrimination, and that goes for ALL laws. Re-instating the death penalty and a little more liberal use of said penalty will go a long way to deterring some, especially "re-offenders", as dead ppl generally don't break laws:-))

"Life is tough. It's tougher when your stupid"
Posted by: RFB

That goes right along with "Life isn't fair it's hard"

we are long overdue for something like a breathalyzer that can quantify how stoned a driver is.Posted by: Jamie MacMaster

Sure, as long as it measures how 'stoned' regardless of what substance is causing it.

A more sophisticated device would monitor the driver's overall behaviour - acceleration, braking, steering and so forth. And then cripple the vehicle (after an appropriate warning) when preset thresholds are exceeded. Easily done with most modern cars. Posted by: NeoLuddite

Excellent option; measure the severity of the problem and take appropriate action in real time.