Trudeau defends pot revelation
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has defended his recent admission about smoking marijuana in a speech before hundreds of local supporters at his party’s summer caucus in Prince Edward Island.
In a Wednesday evening speech, Trudeau acknowledged the controversy he set off last week. He disclosed in an interview that he smoked marijuana about three years ago, while he was an MP, at a dinner party he was hosting and that he’s done that about five or six times in his life.
Earlier in the summer, Trudeau said he wants to see pot legalized, not just decriminalized. The Liberal party voted for that position at its last policy convention.
Trudeau told the huge crowd at the outdoor party held at local Liberal MP Lawrence MacAulay’s home that the debate he set off “blew my mind.”
“Only in Stephen Harper’s Canada could people actually argue that being honest was a calculated risk,” said Trudeau. He said he didn’t talk about his past marijuana use because he wants to disclose “every little last detail, the public sphere is not supposed to be Oprah,” but rather because of the position he backs when it comes to legalization.
“But I do believe that since I am taking a strong policy position on what is a mistake in our policy and in Stephen Harper’s Canada that criminalizes hundreds of thousands of people needlessly and costs us hundreds of millions of dollars every year, I think its time to be able to be forthright and honest about the kinds of changes we need to bring,” he said.
Meanwhile, the desk from the late Pierre E. Trudeau’s Montreal law office will be sold in an online auction by the Heffel Fine Art Auction House, with bids being accepted between Sept. 5 and Sept. 26. (Source: CBC News)