Doug Eyolfson, Liberal Member of Parliament for 46002 Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley (Manitoba)

Doug Eyolfson, Liberal Member of Parliament for 46002 Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley (Manitoba)

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Would you support legalizing a small amount of marijuana? Have you ever tried it?

Whether or not I've tried it is a personal matter I would put under things like my medical history, so it's not something I would talk about.

I certainly support legalizing the possession and purchase of it. I think that the current system of laws do not do anything to make the community safer. I think prohibition is a failure. It's widespread in the community and the fact that it's illegal is a large criminal enterprise, which is actually making the community quite unsafe.

I've seen this from my own personal experience at work. I look after a lot of victims of violence, and much of that is violence of gang members involved in the drug trade. We need to get this out of the hands of criminals and into the hands of responsible licensed vendors.

This will also get it out of the hands of kids. We have the highest rate of marijuana usage among youth in the entire industrialized world because they have absolutely unrestricted access to it. They actually use it much more than alcohol because it's easier to get.

What we need to do is regulate it the way we do alcohol. You have to go to a licensed vendor and you have to produce ID to prove you're an adult. And when you regulate it like that, you can also tax it. That can create a revenue stream that's going into our general revenue, including things like infrastructure, as opposed to profits for criminal gangs.
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Doug Eyolfson, Liberal — Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley
'When people are economically disadvantaged, that goes hand-in-hand with poor health'
CBC News Posted: Oct 06, 2015 7:17 AM CT Last Updated: Oct 06, 2015 7:23 AM CT
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/election-manitoba-charleswood-stjames-assiniboia-headingley-doug-eyolfson-1.3252428