At first it looked like the ultimate flip-flop: the very health minister who ran controversial anti-marijuana ads backs legalization after taking over her routed right-wing party.
But that’s not what interim Conservative Party leader Rona Ambrose said on a Vancouver radio station Wednesday, despite what social media and misleadingheadlines may suggest. What Ambrose actually did on CKNW New Talk was defend her former government’s (widely mocked) ads about pot and kids’ brains and urge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to “take it slow” on legalization while moving quickly to regulate the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries across the country.
Host Simi Sara started off by asking Ambrose if she thought the party’s opposition to marijuana legalization hurt them in October’s election, especially in pot-friendly places like Vancouver.
“I don’t think so because my message was always about the public health impact on children,” Ambrose said, before referring back to her work as health minister to heavily regulate medical pot, while also warning against recreational use. “As Health Minister at the time, I was really concerned about the infiltration of these dispensaries that are not regulated, there was evidence that they were selling to kids… The product itself is in no way regulated or checked by anyone so no one know what’s in it. We’re still in that situation and that’s a concern.
The new government will legalize marijuana, we know that.
“The new government will legalize marijuana, we know that. My concern is the cat’s out of the bag with the dispensaries, there’s hundreds of them popping up they’re not regulated. I don’t know how they’re going to get that back (under control).”
She also blamed municipal government’s like Vancouver for the growing number of dispensaries, as she said the “decision was made locally” to allow them to open and for police to ignore their spread. She also urged Trudeau to continue to spread the public health gospel that marijuana is dangerous for developing brains.
So, no, Ambrose didn’t all of a sudden learn to stop worrying and love the bong.
In many ways she clung to previous misinformation the Conservatives spread — while many medical pot dispensaries, especially in B.C., operate in a legal grey zone, there’s little evidence they sell to kids. And she defended anti-pot ads even some doctors thought were too political.
“We invested $7 million in a public health campaign. We did TV ads, we did radio ads, print ads. They were all vetted by the scientific community and the medical community. A number of medical associations helped provide the idea and the input for the ad campaign and it was all focused on kids and the impact on the developing brain and potentially cognitive and psychological problems that could happen,” Ambrose said, apparently forgetting several prominent medical groups — the College of Family Physicians of Canada, Canadian Medical Association and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada — refused to back the Health Canada ads because they were deemed too political.
So what did Ambrose say that has so many spinning her words into disjointed pro-pot policy? She acknowledged that pot legalization is all but inevitable, so instead of beating the criminalization drum, she urged health promotion instead.
I say to the government, make sure you take it slow, that you got the right public health measures in place, the right restrictions to keep it away from kids.
“I say to the government, make sure you take it slow, that you got the right public health measures in place, the right restrictions to keep it away from kids. It’s a tough thing to do when you legalize something, because when you legalize, you normalize it and then it becomes more acceptable and more available,” she said the Canadian Paediatric Society has repeatedly warned against pot’s effect on growing brains. “We need to have a really strong public health campaign aimed at kids if this moves ahead.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of marijuana legalization. But near the end of the interview, Ambrose showed the party is listening to the growing number of adults who believe pot can be regulated like alcohol, again without fully backing full-blown legalization.
“I think the bottom line is there’s a huge faction of people in this country, that are mostly adults to be frank, that want access to pot and they want it legalized and it’s for recreational purposes and that’s the reality,” Ambrose said. “When you talk about legalization my concern was to move that quickly in that direction without a proper regulatory regime around recreational marijuana would mean that that would be something that would be more accessible to kids. We don’t know what the government is going to do; we don’t have any sense what the regulations will look like, but whatever they look like Prime Minister Trudeau has said he’s going to keep pot out of the hands of children is god, that’s what we need to do.”
And that’s when we get to the key phrase, where Ambrose urges swift action to protect innocent minds from the cannabis corruption:
“I hope that the faster they move on this the better because the proliferation of pot dispensaries is quite large — it’s moved now not just in Vancouver but across the country — and they’re unregulated, so the sooner they move on that the better to protect kids,” she said.
So why is everyone freaking out that this is yet another Conservative party about face since the election? Because Ambrose has been making the rounds trying to remake the party in a softer, gentler more open-minded image than when Stephen Harper was in control. But it’s also the effect of moving to opposition, where a party’s role is to probe the government, even on issues it may have put into motion. Most recently, the Tories have been criticized for changing their tune on a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia, something Ambrose addressed — alongside questions of whether her marijuana stance has changed — head on:
“It’s not so much that you’re changing you’re position. but as a position changes you have to ask the government those tough questions, whether it’s the human rights record of Saudi Arabia (or another issues), that’s the obligation of the opposition. Mr. Trudeau has made a commitment to transparency and we’ve made a commitment to Canadians to ask tough substantive questions and on the issue of Saudi Arabia and the human rights record, we’ve asked him to be clear about what this government’s position is. It is a new government, so obviously we have an obligation to ask them where they stand on these issues.”