We’re obviously cooler than you

At the recent Liberal Party Policy Convention, the Grits decided to throw irrationality to the wind and embraced the legalization of marijuana. Now, we learn, six of the eight candidates for the NDP leadership support some form of legalization. Throw in our Olympic heroes who smoke weed (and don’t have to apologize for it!) and a Prime Minister who not only admitted to smoking, but also inhaling, and it’s clear that the ‘C’ in Canada stands for The Chronic.

Of course, we have a government that has fallen in love with the evidence-free “Tough on Crime” stance, so maybe things aren’t so rosy for blazers, after all.

Jonathan McLeod

Jonathan McLeod is a writer living in Ottawa, Ontario. (That means Canada.) He spends too much time following local politics and writing about zoning issues. Follow him on Twitter.

14 Comments

  1. Wow, I hadn’t realized you were in Ottawa! I’m here too, doing a master’s in international affairs at Carleton.

    You might want to clarify that that’s a former prime minister – I did a double-take at it, as I’m pretty sure Harper’s never smoked pot and wouldn’t admit to it if he had. (Also, this doesn’t really set us aside from the US, as Obama has also used pot (“of course I inhaled. That was the point.”) and both he and Bush (? or so I’ve heard) have used cocaine.)

    Still, this is awesome. I wish the Liberals had had the turnaround on this ten years earlier, when they had a chance of doing something about this, but it’s pretty cool that there’s now only one party in Canadian politics who opposes legalization.

    • That’s cool, Katherine. I have a friend who’s at the Norman Patterson school. I think he’s studying National Security or Nuclear Winter or something. Are you enjoying Carleton? Spending a lot of time at Mike’s Place, I assume?

      I guess clarity would have been good, but I wanted to clear that we knew prior to her becoming PM that she had smoked (and inhaled).

      • I’m liking Carleton, although NPSIA is rather too strongly in the realist/pragmatist foreign policy strain for my liking. I went into international affairs out of moral interests in development and peacemaking (I hope to work for an NGO after graduating). The school is fairly heavily oriented towards preparing people for government careers, and inclined to focus on aspects like national interests, stability and institution-building (regarding conflict), and free-market reforms (regarding development and aid), whereas I’m more interested in justice and trust-building between people in areas of conflict, and in distributional and corporate malfeasance issues when it comes to development.

  2. Sorry, I’m not impressed.

    Of course snowboarders smoke pot. You can’t possibly entertain a serious belief that American snowboarders abstain from tasting the sacrament.

    You have a former P.M. who smoked pot? That’s cute. We have two Presidents, including the incumbent, who snorted coke, as Katherine points out. That’s way cooler than Stephen Harper.

    …Granted that “cooler than Stephen Harper” is setting the bar pretty low.

    • I assume Joe Clark dropped acid off a Vegas showgirl’s belly (that’s funnier if you know who Joe Clark is – I can understand if someone does not; I’m trying to forget).

      Speaking of which, is that on the agenda for Leaguefest?

      • Heidegger, I implore you to hear what I’m saying: you’re too beautiful a soul to let it all slide away by succumbing to the high-yellow rise. Get reconnected, brother! All the best things are in this world, not outside it.

        That’s a choice you can make.

  3. To be fair to Canada, they have Pierre Trudeau. In terms of leader coolness, that’s a significant advantage. Good thing we have Clinton. 🙂

  4. I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time remembering. Was it you guys that gave us Betty White, Battle of the Network Stars and Cats? No? Oh, that’s right. It was us.

    Enough of this foolishness.

    • Betty White is splendidly awesome. There’s a clip of her on Super Password. The “password” is “whip” and her partner gives the clue “bull…”. Before Betty can say a word, Bert Convy rushes to her and puts his hand over her mouth saying “Don’t you dare! I know you too well!”

  5. Thank you cannabis Jeebus! It looks like their electoral schelacking is already doing em good.

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