I'm not inside my own mind today... I have to be... Liberals had to remind us they were Pro-Pot.
Why did we forget all of a sudden. if Jean Chrétien had his way, we would all be smoking big fatties right now. THEY JOKED ABOUT IT IN THE HOUSE FOR FUCK SAKES! OF course, American Oversight's, ahem, nipped that in the bud pretty quick.
Why would they go out of their way to remind us...
Well lets look at the facts here, facts are facts, I don't need bullshit statistics to sell this to you.
People smoke weed, a lot of people. People you know, people you didn't know do it. It's easy to say "majority" to exaggerate but when it comes to smoking marijuana, the people have spoken in the past and continue to keep tokin' in the privacy of their homes because, well, it's the most comfortable that way. It's not ridiculous for me to say that MOST Canadians would be in favor of legalizing Marijuana, it's a simple fact. A truth. Honest and pure.
Now The Liberals got crushed in the last election, CRUSHED... Like. The NDP Did REALLY good. They didn't win, despite the NDP doing really well, the Conservative Majority, when the dust settled, the Liberals were left gasping, breathing crudely into a 30 year old respirator while the Michael Ignatieff experiment failed thanks to maybe the most brilliant smear campaign in the history of Canadian Politics by the Conservatives.
Now, they're desperate. The Liberals have never been the third wheel in the Canadian political spectrum. The announcement of the liberals being pro-pot, especially at this point and time is essentially meaningless. It's like giving someone with the stomach flu cough medicine... What exactly are your words going to change? The Liberals have no weight to throw around in the House right now, all the Liberals are trying to do at this point and time is sway voters...
WHY?
WHY WASTE YOUR FUCKING EFFORT LIKE THAT?!
Unless you REMIND Canada of your feelings for the wacky tobbacky during the prime period of election, people aren't going to care. I'm not much for flow charts or funny pictures to make my points for me, so lets play the hypothetical scenario game.
In the 2011 Election, approximately 61% of Canadians voted. Of that 61%, only 18.9% of those people voted Liberal... so
61% of Canada, approximately, is 34,278,400 (as of January 1st, 2011 according to Statistics Canada) so that means of that 34,278,400 people... A solid 20 million or so voted leaving a decent 10 million Canadians looking like lazy assholes. OF those 20 million people that voted, not even 20% could muster the confidence to vote Liberal, I blame the Conservative smear campaign. It's a double whammy for both, the liberal decline AND the NDP Surge (you can also give Jack Layton considerable credit for that as well) SO for the 18.9% of people that voted Liberal, that means about 4 million Canadians voted Liberal. This is not a small number by any means, but with two parties getting 70% of the vote, the Liberals were due to be lost in territory they don't know, much less understand: The wasteland of Canadian Politics with the Green Party and the Bloc...
SO.... lets look at the numbers a little further. Compared to the 2008 Election, there was a decline in votes of 7.3% approximately in regard to the percentage of the vote the Liberals had, now that 7.3 percent drop accounted for over 40 seats in the House of Commons and almost 5 million votes. A brilliant attack on Ignatieff left the wind out of the Liberals sails and while Layton was launching a spirited campaign for Prime Minister the Liberal Party might as well flushed themselves down the toilet.
That brings me back to the original point... WHY REMIND Canadians that you're pro-pot? Because the Liberals need to make some NOISE... ANY kind of noise will do for them, those 5 million votes made a HUGE difference.
Compare and contrast with the NDP who saw a vote increase of roughly 4 million voters from 2008 to 2011. Those 4 million voters helped the NDP get an additional 66 seats in the house of commons. Many of those new seats were acquired from Liberal territories.
I'm not going to bother with the Conservatives, all that matters is despite getting LESS THAN 40% of the total vote, they have MAJORITY government. That doesn't make any fucking sense no matter how you look at it.
BACK to the Liberals and their dirty pot smoking ways, and why it's important...
The NDP didn't out and brag it, but their rather more relaxed attitude toward small crime such as marijuana and priorities on the health system and education really won over a lot of voters (these things are staple of most Liberal platforms (among other business related things of course) but people didn't care what the Liberals were trying to do.. What were the Liberals trying to do? Nobody knew, and nobody gave a shit because the TV told them they weren't to trust Ignatieff and that ate that shit up like a five dollar Chinese Lunch smorg.
The NDP offered a more appealing body to vote for, and then the conservatives basically got by on name alone (Oh that and pressure power-plays from Big Oil, that's right...) because a large body of Canadian voters hear "Conservative" and just seem to sub-consciously check the box for whatever reason. I will NOT turn this into another Harper HateStock... fuck it, you tell me Big Oil didn't buy this last election and I will say prove me wrong. This left the Liberals gasping for air in the end and the results show it.
A party who, I think still doesn't have a leader. (A quick fact check tells me: Bob Rae is apparent party leader...) Okay so Bob Rae looks like Ric Flair with the chin of a hockey player but what does he stand for. I know nothing of the guy, haven't heard him say a speech and well I don't go Liberal so what does it matter.
HERE is where it matters. IF the Liberals REALLY embraced their sudden fondness for being pro-pot. They would win Canada. Period. IF they came up with an actual platform to legalize it, use the money revenue for Canada's benefit and they have another 3 fucking years to come up with something so STEP YOUR SHIT UP LIBERALS. IF you WANT Canada, it's right there waiting for you to take it. You just have to show some cajones like ol' Jean did embrace an ideal that could help you win an election.
If they just tack it on for notoriety, they're going to sway, maybe a million votes max. Nothing changes, we stay pro-conservative because there's too many people in the older generations who are confused by the new conservatives and what they represent.
You see, there used to be TWO conservative parties in Canada. Red and Blue. I cant make this shit up! They merged and Stephen Harper became the party leader (the leader of the other Con's was, Peter Mackay, our Minister of Defense. Don't even get me started on him. He's as fucking slimy as Harper and he's done more than enough this last year to prove it. He took his position in government, let Harper take control of the party, maybe it was for the best that way because Peter Mackay is not PM material. EVEN if the entire fucking county here has their head up his ass. He's just as robotic and two-faced as Harper ANYWAY....)
Despite both being branded with the Conservative name, these two parties did exemplify different ideals. You can see why the initial merger was so rocky (and why we had minority government for half a decade) people don't know what Conservatives they are voting for, they just know what they know. They voted Conservative in the past (unless you think about LYING BRIAN MULRONEY.) but ohhh the Liberals have done so much to fuck Canada up, never mind what Mulroney did in his time in office. This older generation votes Conservatives, they're not voting for PC's like Brian Mulroney (the Blue Con's) they are probably thinking Red con's (or Tory's as they were called in those days)
Basically, these conservative voters who have voted conservative simply on the merits of the Tory's, are voting for a party that is basically strictly PC-ideology. It's not what THEY were voting for those years ago but its what they continue to vote for now because of the conservative name.
That's another problem for the Liberals. Embracing marijuana as a PLATFORM to use, not just a token decriminalization and maybe promotion of use in a medicinal capacity since many Canadian doctors seem to shun the idea of medicinal marijuana. (Much like the STATES...) so a Liberal platform to facilitate that for patients that could actually use it would be great for Canadians who could use it. That would encourage voters. Showing that you, the Liberal party, have thought about a LEGITIMATE way to use marijuana to HELP Canada and make money for Canada, then the voters will respond to that. IF you are just using the hype of being 'pro-pot' to get some extra votes, you're going to find yourself at the bottom of the barrel again.
2 comments:
Interestingly even Denmark is starting to back away from their famously liberal pot smoking laws.
The thing is, this goes beyond electoral politics. There are several issues at play here. If we legalize pot, then the USA starts imposing even worse border crossing legislation. I don't know if you've noticed but there's a lot of trade that passes between Canada and the USA which represents give or take 80% of Canada's GDP. Even jeopardizing 5% of that means huge problems for everyone in Canada. Maybe it means nothing, but the USA has made it known that trade barriers are a definite possibility. So generally all the pro-pot guys for all their bluster and pomp generally start back-pedalling when the US starts threatening to take a carving knife to our GDP.
There's a flip side to the pot debate which is that Pot does have harmful effects that the Pro Pot crowd doesn't often examine. Mariguana enhances the vast majority of mental illnesses to the point that many people who wouldn't have otherwise had any mental conditions develop full blown problems, and people who have controlled conditions can have major relapses due to pot. This increases suicides, pharmaceutical dependency and creates an overall drain on our public health care system. In the medical world we call this sort of conditional side-effect of a medication's use a contra-indication.
THC is a DRUG. Drugs require prescriptions from medical professionals because they have side effects, indications for use, and contra indications to avoid use. Laws in place ensure that drugs that are "legal" are still restricted by prescription use unless they are so safe that the every day populace is at little risk of harming themselves by using them. This is how drugs like Advil and Tylenol become over the counter meds. Interestingly ASA or Asprin would likely not make it through today's regulations due to it's major contra-indication risks. To bypass those regulatory processes because Pot has become an election issue opens our whole medical system to a mess of law suits and challenges by pharmaceutical companies that would want similar treatment. It would threaten the whole system.
That's why the best you'll ever get as far as "legal pot" goes is a doctor's scrip for legal use. You'll never see them sold in convenience stores like cigarettes.
Good comment, Tony. I love your thoughts.
Concerns you raise are factors that on the surface would yes appear crippling even but there is something that you have to realize Tony, the world is CHANGING rapidly, at a pace more rapid than the world has ever changed.
Its like that quote from Office Space "Every moment of my life is the worst moment of my life so right now, this is the worst moment of my life." That's kind of an allegory for change.
I'm not trying to say this massive change is something that the pro-pot bandwagon can really capitalize on. All I was really trying to say is that if the Libs want to make some serious noise they can and they have 3-ish years to develop a solid platform that will sway those fence sitting voters they lost last year.
There are many pros and cons to the pot debate and honestly Tony, the pro-pot "crowd" will throw any excuse they want to try and sell their point of legalization, the ramifications are possibly global when you really think about it.
The pharmaceutical industry has its paws in the medical industry and that's probably never going to change, legalizing pot wouldn't change that either and it's ridiculous to believe that those guys wouldn't try to cash in on that bandwagon to keep the money going the way its going. Anti-pot people always use that as a go-to excuse as well when you think about it. MONEY talks Tony and it doesn't matter how they're making it, if Pot is their new cash cow they will make it work.
They've used more radical drugs in controlled prescriptions for decades and THE PEOPLE have been the guinea pigs as they figure out what really works and what doesn't. They wouldn't hesitate to go to marijuana for a second.
Agree to disagree... In my opinion I think the closed minds of the dying age will succeed to people who have radically progressive mindsets in the decades to come, for better or worse. We will see.
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