The leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada and a cannabis activist agreed cannabis should be decriminalized at a Friday discussion at the University of Lethbridge hosted by the campus Libertarian Club.
Keith Fagin, a Calgary-based cannabis activist, said cannabis should be legalized and treated like alcohol and tobacco — controlled and taxed.

Dennis Young, Libertarian Party of Canada leader, said cannabis should be decriminalized but not controlled or taxed, given party members advocate for a government with limited powers
Young spent years working on the other side of the fence, first as a soldier and then in the military police. His experiences collecting intelligence in Newfoundland, being at Ipperwash in 1993 when Dudley George was killed, and putting his friend in a body bag in Bosnia eventually made him take a step back to ponder the value of what Canadian forces were doing and who was benefiting.
“Everything the government does somebody benefits,” Young said.

He left the army and worked in the oilpatch for a while, although he said he was unhappy and likely suffering from a degree of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“You have money but no meaning,” he told the audience of about 40 students.

A friend invited him to a Libertarian event and the party philosophy captured his interest. The politics of a big government versus a free society engaged him. He studied capitalism and socialism, and decided capitalism means productivity, even though the downside is that some people will commit crimes.

When substances are illegal, the trade in them typically leads to violence. When alcohol was illegal, the trade in alcohol became violent. When it became legal, violence became associated with use of the substance, not in the trade of it. In the same vein, legalized prostitution, Young said, doesn’t lead to prostitutes disappearing.

“The choice really is do you want the drugs and the prostitution there or do you want drugs and prostitution and the violence there?” he said.

Fagin said Canada’s medical marijuana program isn’t working because Canada has only a few qualified dispensaries and the marijuana permitted by Health Canada is of low quality. He also talked about Bill C-15, which deals with mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. The Senate agreed to amend the bill this week to give judges more leeway in sentencing convictions for growing between five and 200 plants.

Fagin said media reports haven’t been accurate and that the bill will lead to increased incarceration and a larger burden on taxpayers. If the product was legalized, the government would realize tax revenues and be able to reduce its costs of enforcement. He said he encourages people to use cannabis responsibly and not consume it in public.

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