Marijuana advocate Ted Smith said he hopes the future of Canadian drug policy will spell change for cannabis.
Smith and Ottawa’s local activists and experts spoke to a small but attentive crowd at the city’s first cannabis convention at the Ottawa Public Library main branch downtown Nov. 25.
With the smell of marijuana clinging to the air of the auditorium, speakers shared their experiences, expertise and hopes for the future of cannabis in Canada.
The convention was a stop on Smith’s first tour across Eastern Canada, including cities like Toronto, Halifax, and Sackville, N.B.
Smith is the founder of Canada’s oldest medical marijuana dispensary, where qualified patients can purchase the drug in different forms. He said the purpose of this tour is to “plant an idea or a seed in people’s minds that we should be educating people about the uses of the plant and the harms of prohibition.”
He said he hopes to inspire students to start pot clubs at universities and ultimately “create a nationwide organization of students.”
The recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington in the U.S. has reignited public interest and discussion about the potential benefits of taking a similar stance in Ontario and B.C. .
“We are in the cusp of legalization of marijuana in Canada,” said Adam Greenblatt, director of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries.
“It’s going to happen,” he said, calling medical marijuana “the foot in the door” for substantial drug reform in Canada.
However, recent policies the Canadian government has implemented send a different message. On the same day the two U.S. states legalized marijuana, the federal government implemented mandatory minimum sentencing for the production and trafficking of marijuana as part of the Safe Streets and Communities Act, or omnibus Bill C-10.
Eugene Oscapella, a lawyer and criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, emphasized the harsh consequences Bill C-10 may have for young people.
Under the new legislation, if students pass along a joint or another drug without smoking it themselves, they may be risking two years in a federal penitentiary for distribution of marijuana, Oscapella said.
“We can’t justify anything like that,” he said.
Senator and former Ottawa chief of police Vern White took a more cautious stance, saying that we should consider all sides, including potential health risks.
“It’s important to have this discussion,” he said when he spoke to a small class of students at Carleton University on Nov. 23.
White pointed to a recent study done by the New England Journal that links psychotic episodes to marijuana consumption. He said people should be sure about the potential drawbacks the legalization or decriminalization may have in our society before plunging into drug reform.
