The Liberal Party of Canada held an event called “Time to Legalize Marijuana? A panel on the law, politics and science of weed” at the University of Toronto (U of T) on Nov. 5.
The panel of three experts spoke in front of 60 university students. The participants were criminal defence lawyer Marcy Segal, addictions counsellor Paul Markwell, and author Mark Coakley.
“We try to bring the audience out with the intention of asking questions and even sharing opinions,” said Justin Trottier, the mediator of the panel.
Trottier said he believes the event was a success due to the panel’s level of involvement with the audience.
“I was really impressed by the calibre of the panellists and the depth of the conversation we were able to generate,” he said.
The panel discussed the benefits of legalizing marijuana for the sake of health as well as the question of legalizing it for recreational use.
The Liberal Party said it believes Canada is failing its youth in its approach to dealing with marijuana.
“Now is the time to have a serious conversation about appropriate marijuana policy. People can disagree on what that regime may look like,” Trottier said.
There are now three states that have legalized pot. However, Trottier said this is not a factor in pushing this issue but that Canada is failing to educate youth on marijuana.
“There is general agreement that the war on marijuana is a failure,” he said.
Trottier said marijuana is impossible to keep out of the hands of the youth because it’s a plant and growing it is relatively easy. Due to this, he said Canada has one of the worst records in dealing with the drug.
“Canada, I believe, has the highest rate of youth experimenting with marijuana in the developed world,” he said. “We need to ask, what options do we have? And yes, some of those options include legalizing it like they have in certain states,” he said.
All panellists agreed they needed to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, but the real debate lies in recreational use.
“Where there was some disagreement was recreational use. Two of the panellists were all for the full legalization for marijuana for recreational use . . . The third took a more limited view. She was in favour of medical use, but she would like to see more limits to recreational use,” Trottier said.
