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| quote: | Originally posted by Xavier Moriarty
Why is that?? because you smoke up?? educated, honest person??
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Well, just to mention a few reasons:
1. I studied at the University of Toronto for five years and graduated with two degrees including an Honours B.A. and a Masters of Arts in criminology, the latter including a dedicated focus on addiction studies.
2. A number of the most well-respected, experienced, and referenced educators in the world re: drugs, law, and policy issues -- including Dr. Carol Strike, Dr. Benedikt Fischer, Dr. Robert Mann, and Dr. Alan Young -- teach at this school (or did teach while I attended). I completed courses with all four of these individuals as well as many more. Dr. Strike, who is a co-author of the supervised injection site assessment study on Toronto and Ottawa which was just released to the public last week, was the supervisor for my major research paper during my Masters year. For this research paper, I was the lead author of an investigation into the interaction between law enforcement and needle exchange programs across Ontario. I collected and analyzed my own data via phone interviews with NE workers and managers. The entire first section of this 50-page paper was dedicated to reviewing past studies on how the criminal prohibition of drug use negatively impacts drug users' lives and the wellness of their surrounding communities (including data from Canada, the U.S., and Australia). Dr. Fischer taught the 'Drugs, Crime, and Control' course at UofT, which I completed. Dr. Young is one of Canada's most famous vice law lawyers (as well as a professor at Osgoode Law School), an individual who has challenged the prohibition of cannabis (as well as prostitution) all the way up the Supreme Court. He is the person whom the media seek out each and every time any issue relating to the legality of vice crimes arises. I completed at least four separate university courses with him. He is, perhaps, the most experienced person in the country re: the interaction between drug use, prohibition legislation, and policing actions.
3. Dr. Mann is the director of the CoPAS program at UofT (the Collaborative Program in Addiction Studies). Dr. Mann selected a paper I wrote on the the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of cannabis and MDMA use (i.e., what exactly happens when these substances enter a person's body?) as the most impressive paper written by any student in the program for that year, for which I was granted a $1000 scholarship.
4. I also wrote an extensive paper investigating the question of what our government ought to do in response to the practice of driving while under the influence of cannabis, wherein I reviewed all the extant literature on the effects of using marijuana while driving, how different countries are attempting to police this practice, which methods are available for testing for THC levels, etc.
5. I am fairly confident that I have spent more of my free and professional time educating myself about substance use issues (virtually everything you can think of when you read the phrase 'drug use') than anybody you will ever meet. And if that is not true, then at least more than the vast majority of people you will ever know.
All of this aside: as I originally stated, any educated, unbiased, honest person who has thoroughly examined the extant literature must come to the conclusion that the vast majority of harms associated with drug use are in fact caused by criminal prohibition itself - this fact is virtually undisputed by those who dedicate their lives to this area of study - and that in the case of cannabis, legalization is indeed the most sensible and safe method for 'dealing with' a substance that has been used by human beings for more than 10,000 years.
Last edited by Nicolas Oliver on Apr-20-2012 at 23:57
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