There is nothing better than being an adult in a free country like Canada. You can go hiking in bear country, sledding in risky avalanche zones, you can try your hand at whitewater kayaking, you can pierce any piece of flesh, you can drink yourself into a coma or eat enough hot dogs to give yourself a coronary. All of these things you can do, and the list is infinite, because you are free and can decide what to do with your body. You are in charge of You. That is what it means to be free. That is what it means to have free will.
Unless, of course, you want to smoke a little pot. The Federal Government will not permit this because they need to protect you from yourself. As an adult you can make decisions for yourself. But the Federal Government thinks it gets to be your lifelong parent. So you can forget about all of that free will, free country crap. That Government in Ottawa wants to tell you what you can do with your body.
In a free society the one primary thing you think you would have control over is what you do to your body. The essence, the philosophical underpinning of the state of being free is to have control over your thoughts and physical self.
We have a huge bureaucratic and legal apparatus in Canada to keep you from acquiring or using marijuana. And you get to pay for this with your taxes. Marijuana is probably less self destructive than any of the activities listed above. And the enforcement of the prohibition has the consequent effect of creating a huge underground criminal element, financed and empowered to commit further related offences because of the profit from the marijuana trade.
Six years ago in a matter before the court in North Vancouver, Paul Doroshenko made the point that if we simply regulated the sale of marijuana, we could eliminate the associated criminal element and generate tax revenue. This made it into the North Shore News and for a few months Paul was made out on some web sites to be a marijuana advocate.
This was not a new angle. The problem was that the discussion had become stifled and someone needed to say it again. The prohibition on marijuana cannot be justified.
CBC News has posed the question, Should marijuana be taxed and regulated in Canada? This follows on the heels of statements from some of the most respected former Attorney Generals of BC, the former mayors of Vancouver and the chief medical health officers of three provinces all endorsing decriminalization and the regulated sale of cannabis.
Harper’s Conservatives do not want the Government to know about your guns. They think that this is an infringement on your privacy and freedom. A gun is a possession and not part of your body. It is not part of the essence of You. Nevertheless, the Federal Government feels that they have no right to know about what guns you have. But they feel that they must use the force of the police and the criminal law to keep you from smoking marijuana in your own home. And if you dare to grow the stuff, their new law means that you will face a year in jail.
We do not like hypocrisy. We also do not like the Government telling us what we may or may not do with our bodies. In a truly free society you should be entitled to choose what you think, what you ingest and what you do to yourself. You should be permitted to exercise your own free will.
Postscript
In an earlier post we made mention of the Peelian Principles. These rules were developed to fence in police behaviour so that the police would enjoy the confidence of the populace and the populace would feel the obligation to assist the police.
Two of the principles:
- The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.
- Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
It seems to us that the marijuana prohibition undermines public approval of the police and willing co-operation of a significant portion of the public who oppose the prohibition. In short, criminalization of marihuana undermines the confidence many people have with the police and our system of laws.
Confidence in the police is a serious problem in B.C. It is exacerbated by the position of Harper’s Government.