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The politics of pot rages on. This weekend, three of Canada’s top health authorities declined Health Canada’s invitation to participate in an educational campaign about the perils of cannabis consumption.

In a joint statement, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Canadian Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada said that the “educational campaign has now become a political football on Canada’s marijuana policy and for this reason the CFPC, CMA and Royal College will not be participating … We did not, and do not, support or endorse any political messaging or political advertising on this issue.”

Hmm. These are the same organizations which for decades supported Health Canada’s taxpayer-funded war on another type of weed: tobacco. They see nothing wrong with advocating a ban on e-cigarettes, despite “an absence of solid evidence of harms or benefits.” But with the Liberals championing the legalization and regulation of marijuana — while the Conservatives send out flyers claiming Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is pushing pot into the hands of children — Canada’s doctors are opting out of the government’s anti-pot crusade.

It’s hard to know who deserves the rage of the taxpaying public most: the doctors for their hypocrisy, the Liberals for failing to fully acknowledge the negative effects of smoking marijuana — or the Tories for descending into reefer madness self-parody, turning their completely defensible stance against legalization into a bad joke and undermining the very cause they claim to defend.

Legalizing pot would have far-reaching impacts on public health that medical organizations simply can’t ignore. Even if doctors don’t take part in Health Canada’s campaign, they cannot stay silent on the subject in the run-up to the next election.

The bottom line is that all cigarettes — tobacco, marijuana, electronic — need to be evaluated on the same basis: their effects on public health. The doctors are right to refuse to be used as political footballs. Nor is marijuana a tax cow waiting to be milked: After legalizing cannabis in January 2014, the state of Colorado took in only $12 million in marijuana taxes in the first six months of this year — a far cry from its expected $33 million — in part because it taxed only the recreational, not the medicinal, version of the drug.

Then there’s the smoking conundrum. The government — and doctors — want to reduce the number of people who smoke tobacco; they’ve spent billions of public dollars on anti-smoking campaigns over the past forty years to get that message out. In that context, legalizing another addictive, inhalable drug — one which studies show has the same effects on respiratory (but not pulmonary) health as tobacco smoking, make no sense at all. If a Liberal government ends up doing that, the tobacco industry should sue them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for discrimination.

Legalizing pot would have far-reaching impacts on public health that medical organizations simply can’t ignore. Even if doctors don’t take part in Health Canada’s campaign, they cannot stay silent on the subject in the run-up to the next election.

As for politicians, they need to be responsible in this debate as well. The Tories need to stop sensationalizing the Liberals’ stance on pot to fill their fundraising coffers. The Liberals need to be honest about the health effects of their policy. Anything less would be just a smokescreen.

Tasha Kheiriddin is a political writer and broadcaster who frequently comments in both English and French. In her student days, Tasha was active in youth politics in her hometown of Montreal, eventually serving as national policy director and then president of the Progressive Conservative Youth Federation of Canada. After practising law and a stint in the government of Mike Harris, Tasha became the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and co-wrote the 2005 bestseller, Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution. Tasha moved back to Montreal in 2006 and served as vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute, and later director for Quebec of the Fraser Institute, while also lecturing on conservative politics at McGill University. Tasha now lives in Whitby, Ontario with her daughter Zara, born in 2009.

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