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There is clear policy incoherence, which is even more apparent when you consider the minister claims her goal with both pot and tobacco legislation is to protect youth. How can two legislative frameworks, for products that both carry known health risks, have the same stated goal, yet vastly different approaches?

Moreover, the youth-usage rate for marijuana is higher than that for tobacco, and the health minister acknowledges that Canadian youth have the highest rate of pot use in the world.

The federal government has also gone to great lengths to claim its goal is to eliminate the black market for marijuana. The government has even suggested that taxes on pot will be kept low to allow competition with the illegal market. Conversely, governments across Canada have and continue to tax cigarettes to such an extent that it contributed to the creation of an illegal market that now accounts for 20 per cent of the tobacco market in the country.

More remarkably, the health minister launched a consultation on raising the smoking age to 21 while at the same time arguing the legal age for marijuana should be 18.

If the minister truly believes her policy approach to marijuana is effective, then surely it can be applied to tobacco. Instead, Parliament is about to have the spectacle of the minister arguing on one day that branding on tobacco packaging lures youth to smoking and should be banned, while on the next day suggesting branding should be allowed for marijuana.