In 2015 Justin Trudeau was elected Prime Minister of Canada, which was considered by many to be the top marijuana reform moment of the year. Justin Trudeau campaigned on a pro-marijuana legalization platform, and stated during his campaign that if he were elected, he would get to work on legalization as soon as he took office. Mr. Trudeau has taken some preliminary steps to do that, but the process is proving to be more difficult than many had expected. Meanwhile, people are still being arrested for marijuana in Canada, even though legalization is on the way. That is resulting in activists in Canada calling for no more arrests, with one of those activists being prominent Canadian reform activist Jodie Emery. Per News Talk 1010:
Pot activist Jodie Emery says it’s a concern and disappointing.
She says Trudeau seems to be dragging his heels on this and in the meantime prohibition is costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year and too many Canadians are being arrested for pot possession.
“Our movement is asking the Liberals to stop all marijuana arrests. We need a moratorium on marijuana arrests because money is being wasted going after people for pot and the longer we wait to really move forward on this file, the more lives will be negatively impacted.”
When voters approved marijuana legalization in Oregon, and before legalization took effect, some counties suspended marijuana enforcement. That’s what should happen in Canada too. When legalization is inevitable, marijuana prohibition becomes even more absurd (as if it wasn’t absurd enough). The Canadian government needs to put pressure on law enforcement to quit arresting people for marijuana in Canada. Canada is getting on the right side of history, and it’s beyond time that Canadian law enforcement accepted that fact.
