{"id":5409,"date":"2016-01-20T23:43:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T23:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/?p=46350"},"modified":"2016-01-20T23:43:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T23:43:23","slug":"canadas-conservative-opposition-comes-to-terms-with-marijuana-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/canadas-conservative-opposition-comes-to-terms-with-marijuana-legalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Conservative Opposition Comes to Terms With Marijuana Legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/canadas-conservative-opposition-comes-to-terms-with-marijuana-legalization\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>Canada&#8217;s new Liberal prime minister plans to legalize marijuana, and the country&#8217;s Conservative opposition knows there&#8217;s very little they can do to stop it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The new government will legalize marijuana,&#8221; Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, said in a radio interview on Wednesday. &#8220;We know that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ambrose, who served as minister of health under previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper, admitted that legalization has broad public support despite her party&#8217;s longtime championing of\u00a0a prohibition-based approach to drug policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The bottom line is, there&#8217;s a huge faction of people in this country&#8230;that want access to pot and they want it legalized and it&#8217;s for recreational purposes, and that&#8217;s the reality,&#8221; she said\u00a0in\u00a0an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/cknw\/a-one-on-one-with-the-leader-of-the-federal-opposition-the-simi-sara-show-wed-jan-20?in=cknw\/sets\/the-simi-sara-show-2\">appearance on CKNW&#8217;s Simi Sara Show<\/a>.\u00a0&#8220;They were very loud and they were a very strong force, at least here in Vancouver, and they voted for the Liberals and they campaigned for the Liberals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Liberal Party swept the country&#8217;s federal elections in October after a campaign in which party leader\u00a0Justin Trudeau, now prime minister, made ending marijuana\u00a0prohibition an\u00a0official platform plank.\u00a0Because the party won such a strong majority of seats in Parliament, it is\u00a0all but assured that legalization will be enacted.<\/p>\n<p>One thing Ambrose\u00a0seems less sure about is how soon she wants Trudeau\u00a0to move ahead with legalization. During the four-and-a-half-minute radio conversation about marijuana, she first\u00a0said the government should &#8220;take it slow&#8221; but later added, &#8220;I hope that the faster they move on this, the better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trudeau, for his own part, has said his government will take its time crafting regulations he believes will defeat the black market and keep cannabis away from kids.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">\u201cWe\u2019re going to get this right in a way that suits Canadians broadly and specifically in their communities, and why we\u2019re taking the time to weigh in properly and ensure that we\u2019re achieving our goals of protecting our young people and removing the criminal profits from marijuana,\u201d he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2015\/12\/canadas-prime-minister-legal-marijuana-is-about-health-and-safety-not-money\/\">said last month<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">On the campaign trail, Trudeau pledged to move ahead with legalization &#8220;right away.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Within two weeks of being sworn in, he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2015\/11\/canada-officially-begins-move-toward-legalizing-marijuana\/\">directed<\/a> his ministers of health, justice\u00a0and public safety to work together to begin crafting a plan for legalization. And earlier this month, Trudeau\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/bill-blair-liberal-marijuana-czar-1.3394240\">named<\/a>\u00a0former Toronto police chief Bill Blair to coordinate\u00a0the\u00a0marijuana policymaking process.<\/p>\n<p>The government has not yet announced a timetable for implementing legalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada&#8217;s new Liberal prime minister plans to legalize marijuana, and the country&#8217;s Conservative opposition knows there&#8217;s very little they can do to stop it. &#8220;The new government will legalize marijuana,&#8221; Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, said in a radio interview on Wednesday. &#8220;We know that.&#8221; Ambrose, who served as minister [&#8230;] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,1,3,738],"tags":[3311],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}