"but, why won't al gore debate lord monckton."

stop laughing.

in fact, he did, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBzR0-j0O0o

i want to be clear: the ontario liberals have really been a pretty good government. they've made errors around energy policy (they overprojected electricity demand, and underprojected carbon demand). but, they've broadly upheld my own interests, at least.

it's just that this premier has this tendency to pander to the right. it's unusual, right - governments usually pander to the left. this one panders to the right, as all liberals in canada end up doing. and, they do it in ways that are horribly unpopular  - every time.

if you want to pander to the right, let's talk about lowering taxes for working people, or something. that's some good pandering that doesn't put you on the other side of the culture war. but, when you start pandering about privatizing (and actually do it) in order to pay off the debt, you trigger this reaction in an overwhelmingly left-leaning province that, if anything, wants to renationalize the energy sector, and couldn't give a hoot about the debt. and, then the conservatives don't vote for you, anyways.

this family values approach to pot is going to do the same thing.

i mean, maybe it's the immigrant vote. maybe it is. it's a great irony, right - immigrants don't vote, but they flood their representatives' offices. so, the mps are reacting to what they see in front of them. this is the reason you see so many visible minorities running in canada - the parties are reacting to demand, as reflected by calls to their reps. it's not always an accurate reflection of the diversity of the riding on the ground, though.

and, whatever they're getting flooded with at the mp office, it's not accurately reflecting a broader voting public. the data is consistent and clear on this and what they're doing is going to turn them into a joke.

http://hightimes.com/culture/how-marijuana-tolerance-builds-up-and-how-to-bring-it-down/

there seems to be this underlying misconception in government circles that marijuana users smoke as frequently as cigarette users. i think that's the thing that's got them so confused about this.

i hope they're not basing tax policy on that. they're going to be disappointed.

yeah: if you took a 14 year-old and got her smoking a pack of joints a day, she'd end up retarded after a month. do you know what else would happen? she'd build up such a tolerance, that it would no longer affect her at all. then, she'd get bored and stop smoking pot altogether.

maybe you've heard the old story about giving a kid a cigar and telling him to smoke until he pukes. what happens with pot is that you smoke until you don't get high anymore. and, it actually happens fairly quickly.

for that reason, one of the first things that young marijuana users learn - and are in fact taught by more experienced users - is that you need to space it out, that you can't just start sparking like they're cigs, that you need to give yourself a few days. i remember this very clearly, actually. i was maybe a little lucky, because the guy that introduced it to me in the tenth grade had also been a close friend since we were in the third grade. i trusted him as well as i could (i realized the need to fact check him, as he was not academically inclined), and he had my interests in mind. maybe you had your own conversation, but mine went a little like this...

"j, the most important thing - and i can't stress this enough - is that you don't want to build a tolerance. i've seen it. it's the most depressing thing in the world. you smoke with these older people, and they don't even get high. it's terrible. you never want to let that happen to you."
"what's your rule of thumb on timeframes?"
"j, just stick to weekends. you need to study during the week anyways, right?"
"yeah, that's probably what i'll do, anyways."
"you won't need to worry about it if you do."
"cool."
"but, i've seen it. i tell you - it's disturbing. they smoke these huge js and they don't even laugh or anything. it's like nothing. why bother, if you don't get high? don't let it happen to you."
"thanks for the heads-up, man."
"anytime, j. now about that math homework of mine..."
 "ahahaha....not a microphone man..."
"shit. sorry. i do that...."

it's a part of the culture to teach this. and, yeah, not everybody learns it. but, it's the ones that don't that burn out: these are your "former pot users", the ones that never learned you need to avoid tolerance.

the usage model needs to be to more like beer. that's your taxation model. and, it's how people use it.

and, the rare people that do smoke pot like cigarettes are people that have broader social problems - like alcoholics, not like tobacco addicts.

no. this is reefer madness.

the way that the provincial government is throwing around this data is completely irresponsible, and not at all representative of what the research actually states. they're making it seem like any exposure to the drug at all will cause brain damage, which is similar to the way that the flawed research that created that misconception was used in the first place.

do you know what they did to claim that marijuana kills brain cells? that "this is your brain on drugs"? what they did was take a monkey and place it in a hot box at concentrations that created brain damage due to oxygen depletion. then, they blamed that on the pot. it was discredited as soon as it was published, but anti-drug agencies ran with it for decades. it is the "science" behind the fried egg commercials. i'm not shitting you - look it up. it was oxygen depletion the whole fucking time.

the research that they're citing to claim that marijuana causes development issues is based on high exposure over periods of months. it's not that it's wrong - as a long time user, i do not doubt it at all - but it's hardly useful to draw public policy out of it. if you drink a mickey of vodka three times a day for a year straight, you're going to end up with brain damage, too. that doesn't mean we should increase the age limit, or run scary commercials that anybody with internet access can debunk; it means that we need to use vodka far more responsibly than that, and teach our kids how to do so, as well.

in fact, the same research they're citing for brain damage from prolonged heavy use (the most extreme results possible) actually also states that moderate to mild use has no effects on young people at all. it is the latter information that the public policy should be based around, as it is more representative of how young people use it - moderately, and usually on weekends.

that's not to say that people don't "smoke themselves stupid". it happens. but, the policy should not be based around these extreme exceptions - and, doing so misses the point of legalization.

these ads will be ridiculed. they should be. they're wrong. and, don't be surprised if it costs the government the election, in the end.

and, this is strike three for kathleen wynne caving to right-wing special interests in a cynical ploy for votes and having it kill her in the end; she needs to step down before she does long term damage to the party, if she hasn't already.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/07/28/ontario-prepping-reefer-awareness-campaign-on-the-dangers-of-marijuana-as-legalization-date-approaches.html