Nine states will be voting on marijuana legalization measures next week. Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota will be determining medical legalization. While recreational use is the focus in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. All of this despite the continued haphazard scheduling of cannabinoids under federal law.
Amazing! We did it Canada, we voted for change this election with 68% of Canadians stepping out and making their voices heard. And more, the youth of Canada spoke. I couldn’t be prouder to be a Canadian today!
I volunteered for the Liberal candidate in my riding and met with Don Johnston and his wife Jeanette early in his campaign. I threw the question out about cannabis at him and asked what he thought about gardens and dispensaries. His answer was very much what I wanted to hear: ‘Marijuana has been beneficial medically for years and the science is there, never mind the fact it is safer than alcohol and is prohibited and that is ridiculous. People shouldn’t get criminal records and lives ruined over a bit of pot.’
After nearly a decade of Harper’s Conservatives and a ridiculously long election cycle, a new political age dawns on Canada, a new majority Liberal government steps up, and a new Prime Minister takes the reins.
Whether this shift in control was due to strategic voting, a true demonstration of belief in Justin Trudeau, or a reaction to the racist, American-style fearmongering of the Conservative’s Islamophobic campaign, the result is the same: Canadians can only be pushed so far and Canada has the opportunity to be not new but itself, once again.
Twelve High Chicks thanks regular guest contributor Tracy Curley for this article.
As I walked into downtown Toronto’s Vapor Central, the home for the 2015 NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) Canada National Conference, I was first struck by the diversity of the crowd in attendance: there were as always the usual suspects, but a few new faces were mixed in with those I knew but had never seen on this side of town before.
On October 19th, Canadians will — or at least should — head to the polls for our federal election. It is an intense fight: As of this writing the three top parties seem to be neck in neck if the polls can be believed. And there has been mudslinging, dirty tricks, and low blows from all sides. Not many people are happy about their electoral choices or the changes made to voting procedure, and so there is a lot of noise about strategic voting.
Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose’s claim that normalizing medical marijuana use will put kids in ‘danger’ of recreational pot use is a slippery slope fallacy and it hides the real reason teenagers ignore the warnings of Health Canada.
This summer, because of my convictions about access for everyone, I was honoured to accept when I was voted in as President of the Canadian Medical Cannabis Partners (CMCP) a non-profit society that is the voice for over 3500 patients and caregivers. I have always fought for the rights of patients, being one myself, as well as the rights of everyone out there and this group’s mandate is something I can really run with. I want to thank the board of directors for the opportunity!