Justin Trudeau stated he would legalize marijuana if he became prime minister. Instead of taking on Big Tobacco and pushing for a financial settlement for the damage inflicted on the Canadian public by the tobacco industry, a settlement worth in the tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars, Trudeau decided once in power to focus his government’s energies on commercializing an additional smoked product.
Bill C-45, the draft legislation to legalize pot in Canada for adults of 18 years of age and older, allows for marijuana to be consumed through smoking devices for the first year of implementation. Access to edibles will follow.
Norman Bosse, the Child and Youth Advocate for New Brunswick, prepared a risk assessment of Bill C-45, recommending that it be amended to better protect children. Bosse called for a ban on the smoking of marijuana in homes where kids reside. This wasn’t given serious attention by either provincial or federal parliamentarians.
The Senate, the chamber of sober second thought, passed over the right children have to security of self under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by not making amendments to address kids’ exposure to second-hand smoke in the home. Officials engaged in months of discussion over far less important aspects of the legislation than the pivotal issue of the protection of children from the consequences that can befall them from adult use of marijuana, a psychotropic, genotoxic and carcinogenic product.
The gold standard in tobacco prevention is de-normalization strategy. De-normalization aims to tackle the predatory behaviours of addiction for profit industries. Legalization discussions in the House of Commons and the Senate ignored de-normalization strategy and the lessons learned from decades of tobacco control.
Discussions swirled around prosperity for the emerging marijuana industry and funding opportunities for hungry research institutes, institutes who survive on government grants and corporate dollars, which places them in a precarious position when asked to weigh in on the government’s pot agenda.
For complete article http://theprovince.com/opinion/op-ed/pamela-mccoll-xxx