The Marijuana Party, which was founded in 2000, has struggled to find relevance recently

As Canadians across the country line up to do their civic duty and vote in the Federal election, voters in two Ontario ridings will have the option to show their enthusiasm for marijuana.

Paul Coulbeck (Chatham-Leamington) and Terry Parker (Parkdale-High Park) are both running for the Marijuana Party of Canada and would like to see the country’s Cannabis Act repealed because of the way it has rolled out across Canada.

Coulbeck said a lot of people have been left behind by legalization, especially Canadians who used to make a living working in illegal dispensaries. “They’ve closed down all kinds of shops and people who were there for years serving the medical community, and they’ve closed down these places after they did this legalization,” he told Chatham Daily News.

The 71-year-old Coulbeck said he wants to keep people informed of the medical benefits of the drug, which he believes should be a part of everyone’s diet — as long as it is not used through combustion.

“I speak for the riding, not the party,” said Coulbeck. “I don’t have a party, really. There’s maybe 30 of us in the whole party across the country. I’ll need the people who are there to work with me.”

The Marijuana Party, which was founded in 2000, has struggled to find relevance recently. When recreational cannabis was legalized in Canada last year, the party lost its main policy plank and a key avenue for fundraising. It received just .01 per cent of the popular vote in the last federal election.

“We run our party on a broken shoestring budget and it’s more and more broken and shorter and shorter all the time,” federal leader Bill Longley told Huffington Post. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep it registered, because it’s trying to do something with nothing.

“We are totally insignificant.”

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