Today’s Wall Street Journal carries a story about Canada. It seems that, thanks to decriminalization of marijuana, 17% of Canadians are smoking dope, behind Papua New Guinea and Ghana, but ahead of all other industrialized nations. How are these stoners doing? The Canadian dollar is worth more than the U.S. dollar right now…
15 thoughts on “Canadians are all potheads… but they are still better than us”
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They scam the USA every chance they get.
Essentially they have no military and thus no military expenditures, because the USA would never permit a hostile force to invade Canada.
They have some kind of special auto-making deal cooked up in the 50s that forces US manufacturers to locate some of their plants in Canada.
And, it is illegal for a US citizen to own a bookstore or book wholesaling operation in Canada. How is that for freedom of speech and reciprocity?
Canadians are parasites and the USA is the host. Yes, I grew up in Canada.
Shoot over in Colorado, cops are paying growers for their pot! Thanks to the state’s constitution cities have to fork over hundreds of thousands of bucks for destorying crops. Go Rockies!
@Patrick
If cheap Canadian raw materials (petrol,agri,lumber,etc) stopped flowing into US on a daily basis, your economy would grind to a massive halt. ‘Single largest trading partner’ must stand for something….if parasitic is defined by off-balanace symbiosis, then I would say that America is parasitic in the relationship, not Canada…now, where are my rizla’s at….
We as Canadians don’t worry about hostile forces invading Canada because our foriegn policies do not insult people in other countries. We do not invade and occupy, for any reason. We have just enough military to keep the peace not start the wars. We do not have free speech in Canada, that is in the Amercan constitution, which by the way is not worth the paper it’s written on thanks to your government. Canada is a vast land with enough natural resources to keep us happy for years to come. All we get from the US is entertainment and junk food. Give me a break, we are far from parasites.. wait till your President is finished with you, your economy will be in the toilet.
Vote Ron Paul.. it’s you’re only hope.
The stat is 17% percent of 15-64 are willing to admit using marijuana in 2006. From my experience that seems about right. Which is not surprising since the stuff is semi-legal here. The business news occasionally will do a piece about the state of the pot industry in BC.
Too bad the WSJ got it wrong. It was the former Liberal government who floated the idea of decriminalizing weed.
The new Mini-Bush government has done a 180 and put [b]stiffer[/b] sentences in place.
Along with slashing funding to women’s programs, pumping billions of dollars into our Military and business tax cuts, cracking down on music and movie piracy (aka. fair use), and as of yesterday outlawing gay men from being able to donate their organs.
Bunch of stoners indeed.
Essentially have no military? Perhaps the Canadians do lack a full scale military such as the US, but we do not have to use it in the manner the US choses to. We deploy small armed forces used for peace keeping, civilian protection, and the overall success of Canadian troops has foreign nations begging them to stay.
The US would protect Canada with its obscenely large army because of A: The US complete and utter dependence upon raw materials from Canada. B: Canada shares the largest border with the US. C: Canada is full of good people who actually contribute something positive to the image of the US. This auto making deal your so bent up on? If you want the consumer to chose your product you have to appear friendly and reliable. By keeping all the plants on the American side and make a big deal about it you essentially are telling people, we’ll sell you the product but make it so that it doesn’t help your people (ie jobs, contribution to community). If that were so a whole lot more people would drive Jap Crap.
And I must agree its not fair for a US citizen to not own a bookstore in Canada. But that is hardly limiting freedom of speech that the US citizen occurs on a daily basis. Warentless wire tapping, internet activity recording, legislation (pending) that says anyone who speaks out against the US government is a threat and thus the appropriate measures can be taken against them (bloggers, journalists, a poster etc), people getting arrested for anti government shirts, major news studies obviously skewing the truth and hiding the facts. It must really be a downer being a US citizen knowing you cant own a book store in Canada Patrick (I highly doubt many US citizens have this passion to own a bookstore north of the border). But good point none the less ,you really shot down Canada and it being a viable place to live because of a bookstore policy…
Sigh and yes we are parasites with our stronger dollar (which we all hope goes down, US please pick it up, it doesn’t help anyone), higher standard of living, a government that follows our constitution, Universal Health Care, better international image, lower (but rising) obesity rates, and the fact that if the US cut us off from their resources.. well wait, we’d be just fine. So Patrick bugger off, even a good percentage of American’s would love to live in Canada or have a governing body like it does… (have you read the statistics on American’s moving to Canada? Look into it you wanker).
The 17% figure is the number of people who tried Marijuana in the year surveyed (2006 numbers cited in the article).
Typically, about half that percentage are regular ‘recreational’ smokers.
Compare to statistics from 2003, where there were 3 million who tried it in the year (~12%), and 1.5 million who smoke on a more regular basis. You would have to dig through the Stats Canada website to find the exact number of ‘recreational’ smokers.
Get the facts straight…Its not decriminalized nor will it be in the foreseeable future. The reason we smoke so much of it (I’m fairly positive that its higher than 17%) is because we don’t get lengthy or life sentences for violating the existing pot laws. Our RCMP officers would rather snuff out your joint on the ground than fill out the paperwork. The officers are not intentionally disrespecting the laws, simply they often realize how ignorant and harmful those laws can be to the average citizen. Our officers aren’t necessarily bred with the “Drugs are Bad” mantra and realize that one simply cannot enforce what people want to put into their bodies.
Please understand that there is a big difference between decriminalization and legalization. Decriminalization means that penalties for possession would only be applicable when someone is carrying more than a certain amount, manufacturing or distributing. Legalization would allow the whole kitten caboodle and even allow you to grow your own unabated.
Marijuana was going to be decriminalized under the former Paul Martin liberal government, but our latest prime minister, Stephen Harper, rejected the proposed legislation and has actually promised harsher penalties for drug offenses including pot possession. I suspect the new legislation is motivated by the urge to pander to the US government. These things always seem to come up after official visits by American politicians. Personally I’d prefer it if these Americans just stayed at home along with their delusions.
There are a lot of advantages to being Canadian or becoming Canadian…for one…its easier to immigrate here than to our American counterpart. Our politicians actually listen to us even in small numbers. We have free health care (its not exactly as pictured in ‘Sicko’ but its still pretty good). We have a lot to offer.
I personally like Canada, and I think the Canada-bashers posting here are not representative of the US population at large. FWIW, the Canadian military has troops in Afghanistan (which I view as a much more appropriate action than our imperialism in Iraq).
I’m not sure that the Canadian “gouvernment” is all that great, but compared to the Brownie-you’re-doin-a-heckuva-job incompetence of the Bush administration, anything looks like genius (and I say this as a Bush 2000 voter).
But I don’t find 17% all that shocking: What are the corresponding numbers here in the US?
The US military is — and has been for a long time — a farce and a joke. World War I? Showed up about half-way through. WWII? Showed up after the outcome had been determined. Vietnam? Got their asses kicked by a bunch of third-world peasants. Oh, wait, there was Grenada … sent an invasion force that almost outnumbered the island’s population. And Iraq is the crowning achievement: women were safe walking alone at night; now nobody is safe. Why? Because 19 Saudi Arabians killed as many people as American’s murder every couple of months. And what was the American answer: invade Iraq. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. When I point this out to Americans they (to no one’s suprise, the answer involves violence) always retort they’ll invade Canada. Silly, ignorant Americans. They tried that in 1812. They got their asses handed to them in a sling.
That is a lot of crap about not permitting Americans to own bookstores…what silly nonsense. I would suggest that rather than Canada being a parasite, it is the other way around. We supply the US with sufficient oil to be the number one supplier to your country and might I add, we take half as much in royalties than does Alaska so we are subsidising your giant SUVs. Regarding the Auto manufacturing segment, are you aware that you got cars made in Canada and paid 20% LESS for it than we did…We were being ripped off for every car we made until we decided last month to say, the hell with that and stopped buying cars until your corporate bum auto manufacturers said “Uncle” and dropped prices here.
I cannot speak of the War on Drugs except to say,we have problems with cocaine and crack but the big hoopla about smoking grass ( we say, smoking dope by the way) has little resonance here since the majority of Canadians do not consider it a criminal act though, in fact. it is. Cops have enough to do to stop scum selling coke and crack to worry about simple possession but they do come down on grow ops. I cannot speak of its medical advantages but I do know it is legal to supply cancer and AIDS patients who need it. The rather right wing temporary government here is a George Bush Fan Club so they want to get tough on everything but no one takes these born agains seriously and they have no chance of getting a majority government so it is impossible for them to pass controversial laws against smoking weed beyond what is already on the books as Canadians do not believe addictions are criminal but medical…like much of the civilised world. Your war on drugs has resulted in the highest imprisonment ratio to total population in the world, by the way and also, not surprisingly, results in very rich corrupt officials, richer drugs barons, insufficient social structures to turn American around in this devastating problem and paranoia and blame levied at this country when the problem is YOURS alone.
Canadians were asked which American party they would vote for had they the right to do so and 75% last week said the Dems. Democrats are, maybe a bit right wing for most Canadians but better than the fascists running the US right now according to the news here..
@ Neil, etc. see http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/pubs/invest/invest_e.cfm (gc.ca is an official Canadian Government site from what I can tell).
Quote:
“The book publishing and distribution investment policy requires that foreign investments in the book publishing and distribution sector be compatible with, among other factors, national cultural policies in order to be of net benefit to Canada.
As part of the measures to strengthen the book publishing and distribution sector:
* Foreign investments in new businesses are limited to Canadian-controlled joint ventures.”
Considering that the Irvings own most of everything east of Quebec and the old-money families have most of the wealth of Canada, I am not sure what to make of claims that the US is controlled by the monied interests, while Canada is not.
Patrick:
I was a little surprised to read that but I can understand it. If you wanted to open a variety store or sell auto parts in Canada I’m sure they will welcome you. This is actually one way to immigrate to Canada because you will bring in money and jobs.
But for a long time we have had a term called ‘Canadian Content’ that describes restrictions on how much external media can influence the cultural basis of Canada.
The home page of that site describes it very simply:
“Canadian Heritage is responsible for national policies and programs that promote Canadian content, foster cultural participation, active citizenship and participation in Canada’s civic life, and strengthen connections among Canadians.”
We get a lot of US media here (TV, books, magazines, radio, Internet) etc that there is a real perception that nothing created by Canadians will filter into the mainstream.
And it is protectionist for sure. But free trade is a myth as well. British Columbia will trade more with Ontario than with Washington State.
Whoa. I didn’t expect this posting to draw much more than a smile! I just thought it was ironic that this spike in dope smoking corresponds to a spike in the value of the Loonie.