Response to “Hardly a Prince”

A conservative blog called Proud to Be Canadian had a posting written by Susan Martinuk about your friend and mine Marc Emery. It seems they are not a fan of Marc, or his cause. I know this is not a shock in any way shape or form, but I felt compelled to blog about this article and dispute the claims she makes.

First the author claims that this is a simple case of a Canadian breaking US law and a legal extradition order to bring to justice the wrong doer, and that there are no political or sovereignty issues to deal with. Well she is correct, to a point, however how is justice being served by a Canadian citizen going to jail for quite some time for a crime that is rarely prosecuted her in Canada, and when it is results in a minor fine with no jail time. Add to that the fact that the US government is claiming that Emery was laundering money. To me this is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard; in order to launder money don’t you have to hide that fact that you are running illegal activities? Marc Emery claimed all sales in income tax forms he hid nothing. The fact is it is a simple extradition issue right now, but the Canadian government could avoid the whole thing simply by charging Marc Emery with Marijuana seed selling here in Canada, slapping him with a fine and telling him to go on his merry way. At this point the US would not have the authority to extradite Marc Emery since he had already been tried and punished for his crime.

The author then claims that since Marc Emery has broadcast that he is trying to promote legalization of marijuana through civil disobedience. Well since when did political protest become a reason to allow a citizen to be extradited on overblown charges?

Next the author claims that since Canada has soften its views of the drug that pro legalization people are claiming it is a “’a relatively harmless substance’ only used by responsible adults to relax on the weekend”. I would agree with the first part, but not the second. I don’t think a single pot activist would claim that there is no such thing as a chronic pot user that lights up too often. What I object to mainly though is her refutation of this is to cite a study which shows pot smoking is exceeding tobacco smoking among our youth. This not only does not refute the relative safety of the drug, but to me is a good thing, I’d much rather see my daughter (and, yes I do have a daughter) light a joint then a cigarette. This is not to say I'd encourage her to do either, but just that Marijuana does not kill like cigarettes.

She then continues by pointing out that Canada has the highest percentage of marijuana users of any industrialized country. Again this does nothing to refute the safety of marijuana. I would like to add though that this is higher then the Netherlands which has legalized marijuana, to me this indicates that the best way to lower marijuana usage, especially amongst youth, is to legalize tax and regulate it.

The author then invokes the holy grail of anti-drug fiends, she calls marijuana a gateway drug. I have already covered this extensively in my article on the Gateway Drug Theory so I won’t bother slamming this one.
The author then sites a study showing the addictive nature of marijuana and uses this as the ultimate evidence that marijuana is not harmless citing that 27% of those seeking drug rehab treatment are marijuana addicts. Well I’d like to point out that caffeine is also an addictive substance, in fact in some respects it is considerably MORE addictive then marijuana, alcohol is also considerably more addictive, and what about he legal drug that many consider just as addictive as heroine, tobacco. Addictive does not always equate destructive, addictions are bad, but people can get addicted to anything.

Finally she quotes a British study that demonstrates seemingly indicates a link between marijuana and psychosis. However what she conveniently leaves out is no causal relationship has been found, and in fact the researchers are not even sure there is one, it could be that people prone to psychotic episodes are more likely to try drugs (many types) in order to curb the thoughts that are linked to psychosis schizophrenia.

In short the article is nothing more then a half informed piece of garbage which the author either deliberately slanted or is ignorant of the very facts she quotes and is working from headline titles alone.