CSSDP - Charlatan: Pondering pot prohibition

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Charlatan: Pondering pot prohibition

Written by Kayla Redstone

Marc-Boris St-Maurice kicked off the Canadian ‘Resolving Marijuana Prohibition’ tour with a panel discussion at the Ottawa Public Library downtown on Jan. 26.

St-Maurice is the Canadian executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a group formed originally in the United States to decriminalize the usage of marijuana. Guelph and Hamilton are the tour’s next stops and St-Maurice says he hopes they will be the first of many across the country.

The group’s philosophy of anti-prohibition stands on four pillars, which St-Maurice addresses in his video, Resolving Marijuana Prohibition: economic development, health and medicine, social justice and policy implementation.

The organization argues that legalizing marijuana would boost the Canadian economy much like lifting the prohibition on alcohol boosted the economy during the Great Depression. Furthermore, expenditures on policing and judiciary needs would decrease.