Kid Paiken Talks Like Hippy

He says:

Another very important development emerged from the Party’s 2012 biennial convention this past January, however. Liberal delegates overwhelming approved a policy pushed by young Liberals in British Columbia advocating the legalization and regulation of cannabis. The fact that 77 percent of all delegates backed the resolution proves that the issue is relevant not only to young Canadians.

Now that Liberal leadership candidates are beginning formally to declare their intentions, they should also pledge to campaign on this policy in the next federal election....

Look, I support this policy for the reasons the Paiken lad gives in his IPolitics article.  But too many party activists  want it to be the centre-piece of any LPoC revival, and I am afraid such thinking is madness.  Not because it enables the party to be labelled soft-on-crime.  The Tories may try that, but I don't think it will work: the majority of the country has supported either decriminalization or legalization for years, including a fairly large part of the CPoC base.  No.  Its madness because it allows the party to be labelled un-serious, and if the Tories have any brains that's the line they will take.

An election should be fought on the economic direction of the nation, on whether Canada's defence policy should be more or less closely tied to that of the U.S.  On big issues, that is.  Not on whether or not the occasional careless stoner gets away clean when a cop finds a roach in his car ashtray.

In any case, what practical effect would legalization have in the first place?  Weed's been about $300 an ounce since I came to Toronto (so representatives of the sub-culture inform me, at least).  Its almost impossible to get busted for simple possession.  And you never get those dry spells you used to back in the 80s, no matter how many grow-ops get busted.  So who really cares?

Can anyone seriously imagine somebody like Justin Trudeau, who is already being criticized as a light-weight, making  this bit of frivolity the key to his election strategy?  If so, they must be smoking something considerably stronger than the herb.